


i want to (wail at the moon like a cat in heat)

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (ABOut), Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Demihumans, F/M, I am not listing out sex positions there are gonna be a lot of them, I apologize to my parents and also my beta but mostly my cat tbh, Knotting, Leia Organa Knows Too Much And Is Being A Very Good Sport About It, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Rey, Politics AU but it’s not really got a lot of politics, Power Bottom Rey, Smut and Fluff and Angst, a smut for every chapter and a chapter for every smut, and also probably some of you for at least some of what you’re going to read in here, because I know what I'm about, because it’s an ABO fic turn back ye who Do Not Want That, count the number of plotlines i blatantly steal from the west wing, count them anakin, how much of this is your author just loving talking about (actual irl) hormones?, we may never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-03 07:12:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Rey feels the beginning of her Heat a week before Super Tuesday and wants to die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [porcelaindakota](https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcelaindakota/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Misbehaving For Days](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12686448) by [t0bemadeofglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0bemadeofglass/pseuds/t0bemadeofglass). 



> I am taking some of the structural inspiration (ie the demihuman setup) from Misbehaving for Days by t0bemadeofglass (which I strongly recommend and is almost entirely to blame for me finding myself in this kink). The concept of Rey, Ben & others as having genetic markers from different animal species is one I got from her. Similarly, I’m keeping knotting around despite that not necessarily being a thing for cats because, well, ABO fic. I take this fic in (I think/hope) a very different direction, but goddamn if that one wasn’t the strong inspiration for this. For those of you who are new to the trope, I have a link to an explanation and a breakdown of how I'm using it in the [endnotes of this chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563752/chapters/33652536#chapter_1_endnotes).
> 
> I’d like to thank all the fanartists out there who draw unbelievable smut work. Seriously. Y’all are. Inspirational.
> 
> In an effort to suspend your disbelief, I am trying to keep the politics vague. While intentionally based on the American political arena, I’m trying not to use names of states/parties etc. so you can pretend it’s not if that is your jam. That being said, since this is about politics, there will be political content in it. I will have zero sympathy for reviewers who say “I wish you’d kept politics out of this” (which has happened to me in other fics where I bring politics into it and give a warning about it) because I’m sorry—you know what you’re getting into with both the tags and this note. If you don’t want politics with your shameless weird animalistic smut, there are other fics out there for you.
> 
> I’m dedicating this fic to porcelaindakota, because I bit the bullet and wrote an ABO fic after years of kinkshaming you for reading ABO fic. Kinksame, apparently my dear. Kinksame. 
> 
> Last but not least, many millions of thanks to aionimica who not only beta'd this for me but also got so excited that she drew some [kickass art](https://aionimica.tumblr.com/post/173531039733/resident-powercouple-judging-youmore-this) before I'd even posted it.

Rey feels the beginning of her Heat a week before Super Tuesday and wants to die.

Not literally.

Not even—as Rose will sometimes joke with an eyebrow waggle—in the metaphorical sense, though that will come very soon she’s sure.

In the humiliation sense.

Which is new, she supposes.

But the past six months have been a time for newness.

Rey has been working on Leia Organa’s presidential campaign for four of those six months, and had been volunteering for the two months prior to that. Volunteering is a strong word. They’d promised to feed the volunteers and Rey, never quite sure where her next meal would come from, had leapt at the opportunity to help deliver lawn signs to donors who wanted to proclaim proudly for all their fellow suburbanites that they supported Leia Organa for President. Rey had her own bike and the promise of pizza or sandwiches was enough to make her work up a sweat every day until Poe Dameron had mistaken her fervor for food for actual fervor and offered her a job.

Which she’d shocked herself by actually being good at, given that she’d dropped out of high school several years before.

And maybe it was that she was smart and quick; or maybe it was that she was good at getting people to see the truth of matters so frequently forgotten during presidential primaries in the name of just trying to get your name out there; or maybe it was just luck; or maybe (if Rey believed in fate) it was fate; but somehow she ended up working on the General’s team after they’d won three primaries and were fast catching up to Anib Ney—if they kept the leads the news told them they would have on Super Tuesday.

Super Tuesday, a week away, and Rey’s Heat about to rip through her body and make this already stressful week that much more difficult.

At least she has suppressants. At least they are covered by the medical insurance she has now that she works full time.

Not that it would matter.

The General is part cat too, and the one thing the nice doctor who’d prescribed her suppressants to her had said was that they did not necessarily work on other demis with cat species markers.

So her boss will know she’s in Heat.

And, worse, so will her son.

“I want to die,” Rey told Rose as they stand off-stage, listening to the General give her stump for the third time that day. That the General has yet to lose her voice is a miracle, but Rey supposes she has to have stamina, given that she is running for a job that requires the utmost stamina.

“It’ll be fine,” Rose tells her, squeezing her hand. “I can’t smell it on you.”

“Rose, you’re a dog. You can’t smell me on my suppressants.”

“So no one else will,” Rose says. “You’ll be fine.”

But even as Rose says that, Rey sees Ben—who is sitting at the table behind his mother as she speaks to the gathered audience—turn, his face magnified on the great big screens that were projecting Leia Organa throughout the room. There is a cross breeze across the stage—fans to keep those sitting under the big hot stagelights from sweating too much. And she thinks she catches the scent of him—musky and catlike—there as he stares at her. As she watches, Rey definitely sees his nostrils flare.

“Shit, I need to get out of here,” Rey mutters. She can feel her face turning bright red, and her heart beating harder in her chest, which will only make it _worse_ because blood flowing faster through her heart will mean blood is also flowing faster down between her legs _._

She hates Heats.

Fulls will complain about periods and how they come once a month, and Rey always nods in sympathy because she gets periods too—if less frequently. They’re definitely not fun at all. But no full will ever know the experience of feeling like your body will fall apart if you don’t get fucked and soon for a full week. They’ll never understand that no PMS in the world is quite like the experience of Heat anger when you’re not fucked, that no cramps are anything like the way your uterus seems to swell in your body because it wants to make as much room for cum as it can.

And no full will _ever_ know the experience of watching as the son of the person who you want to get elected president smells that on you.

 _At least I have suppressants,_ she reminds herself. At least it isn’t every alpha in the room—it’s just (she groans internally) Ben Solo.

Rey spent most of her adolescence without suppressants, and it’s not a time she particularly wants to remember. Not that she wants to particularly remember her past at all. But her particular dislike of Heats comes from sleepless nights in her shack, afraid her fingers aren’t enough, and not wanting to unbar the door. And when she’d been older, there had been of course the repeated assertion from many an alpha, tugging his pants back up his legs, that she is a _shitty_ omega.

Rey shakes herself. Her present is more than unpleasant enough without dragging up memories of her early Heats. The warmth from her flush of embarrassment won’t go away, the way her heart lurches blood through her won’t go away, and she’ll end up masturbating furiously in the hotel room for hours before they fly out at ass o’clock tomorrow morning. It’ll be enough for her suppressants to handle the rest and she might actually get to sleep, which would be a new luxury for her Heats. Until her suppressants, she couldn’t sleep a wink since her cunt was throbbing and wet and needy and kept her up all night. (Seriously. Insurance is the best thing to have happened to her.)  

She’ll just do her best to avoid the General over the course of the next week.

And Ben—

Well, it’s not like she spends a lot of time with Ben anyway.

Ben doesn’t spend a lot of time with _anyone._

He is a solitary creature. The General says it’s always been in his nature—perhaps the cat coming in strong in him—but more likely, Rey has always assumed, it is that until his mother announced her presidential bid, he had spent a good amount of time working for Snoke, a crime that was practically unforgiveable within his mother’s party. If he’d been anyone else’s son, he wouldn’t have been allowed within a thousand feet of this campaign.

And he definitely scented her at the event tonight.

God, she could die, she really could.

She’s halfway back to the hotel in her cab when her phone buzzes.

_Where are you?_

She doesn’t actually know who is texting her, and yet she feels it down in her gut.

_Who are you?_

_Ben. Where are you?_

_I’m heading back to the hotel._

_I caught your scent during the stump. Do you want me to help you out?_

She stares at the words on the screen for a moment.

It’s by no means out of the ordinary for an alpha to offer himself to an omega in Heat—and Ben’s offer is significantly more polite than what she’d grown up with—lead pipe in hand just in case someone tried to break open her door, driven to Rut by her scent. She even suspects that if she does text back those two little letters, he won’t come banging on her door when he gets back to the hotel.

She _should_ say no. She should, because she really…doesn’t want to fuck her boss’ son, potentially the son of the future president. Just because she is in Heat. Just because he had caught a whiff of her through her suppressants.

But her brain—a rare ally to her hormones in this unfortunate situation—fills her head with the image of her straddling him, of feeling him stretch her perfectly while his hands trailed fire across her skin and his plush lips—

_Fine, if you think you can cut out. I’m not going to be waiting for very long._

_I should also warn you, I’ve been told I’m a shitty omega._

_I doubt that somehow._

_I’ll be along soon. What room are you in?_

_802._

He doesn’t reply to that and Rey leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. _This will be fine,_ she tells herself. _I’ll fuck him, he’ll get the idea, and that’ll be that. And having his cum inside me will ease the Heat._ Probably better than any other alpha’s would. He is part cat after all. She’d read on the internet that cum from someone in your species soothes your Heat a lot more than someone with a different species marker. Which makes all this very convenient, she supposes.

And which was why she is in this situation to begin with. He can smell through her suppressants and no other alpha can.

She wants to die.

And ride him. Ride him until she can’t breathe, until she can’t feel any part of her body except—

“Here we are,” the cab driver tells her, and Rey sits bolt upright. She thanks him, and gets out of the car, painfully aware of how wet she is as she makes her way through the hotel lobby to the elevator. Every step she takes, the swelling flesh of her labia rubs against itself and it makes her breath come through a little shaky. She can totally at least finger herself a little bit before Ben bets there.

When she reaches her hotel room, however, the key-card is not in her purse. She looks through it twice, searches through every part of her wallet, but it is gone.

Growling in the back of her throat, she returns to the elevator and makes her way to the front desk, praying there aren’t any other demi-cats in the lobby who will be able to smell just how dripping wet she is. _And this is from just a whiff of him on suppressants,_ she thinks bitterly as she waits behind a businessman who is checking in. It doesn’t feel any lighter than her other Heats, now that she is in the swing of it. Should she call her doctor?

She smells him before she sees him—smells him the moment he comes through the doors of the lobby and he’s definitely reacted to her Heat from the way his hormones are rolling off him now. She doesn’t turn around, she refuses to. But god if she doesn’t feel her nipples get harder under her blazer. _Maybe suppressants don’t work on him in both directions,_ she thinks glumly as the businessman thanks the desk clerk and makes his way towards the elevator. She’ll have to check forums about it later. Someone will know. This will have to have happened to someone before.

“Hi,” Rey says as she steps forward. “I’m Rey Johnson and I’m staying in 802. I can’t find my key.” She slides her ID across the desk and the clerk assures her that she’d have a key ready in just a moment.

She hates how her body is quivering just from the nearness of him. She hates that she has to force herself to breathe. She hates that a few times a year, it feels like she loses complete control of who she is, and that her mind and her body stopped working as one.

And right now, she hates Ben Solo for standing there, knowing all of this, and making it worse by smelling _so_ _damn good_.

“Here you are Ms. Johnson. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that’s everything,” she responds and she turns away from the desk. Ben is standing by the elevators, his hands in his pockets, seeming to be reading a framed letter that informs the guests in the hotel what time the continental breakfast will be served. His shoulders are ridiculously broad, and his hips are ridiculously narrow and the way his torso tapers between the two makes her mouth water. Lithe. Lithe like a cat. She’s never been with a cat before.

She presses the button to take them upstairs and a moment later they are in the elevator.

It’s unbearable—the scent of him that close. Her body aches for him to pin her to the wall, or at least wrap his arms around her, or take her hand, or something. But he just stands there, his hands in his pocket, and Rey’s head at least is glad of that. Maybe her head and her body aren’t in as close cahoots as she’d initially thought. That’s comforting, because she doesn’t want him touching her until they’ve actually talked somewhat.

He follows her to her room and the key unlocks the door with ease, despite the way that her hands are trembling.

The moment it clicks shut behind him, she whirls around. “First things first,” she says firmly, acting before her body takes over, “No ripping my clothes. I don’t have an endless supply.”

He inclines his head. “How about you undress for me?”

She hates that her breath catches at that suggestion. Her head jerks in a nod.

“No commands,” she says next. Her voice is a little shakier. “I hate that.” It was bad enough that she didn’t feel like herself during her Heats—she didn’t need an alpha using that part of his voice to command her, to take away any part of her autonomy.

He nods again, and there was something else, she knows there was something else. But she can’t think because her stomach is quivering and she can see the way his dick is getting hard in his pants. And her mouth is watering again.

“That it?” he asks her dryly, and her eyes jerk back up to his face. He’s smirking at her, because she’s easily just spent a good fifteen seconds staring at his hard-on and he is an alpha. And that smirk…it does something to her.

She shrugs off her blazer and hangs it over the back of the chair. She unbuttons her blouse in not even a little bit close to a sexy way, folds it, and puts it on the desk. She takes off her bra, unzips her skirt and lets it fall to the ground and kicks off the pumps she’s wearing. Then and only then does she strip her underpants—big cotton granny panties because she’s never understood how people wear thongs when it feels like your ass is just hanging out like that and lacy stuff is itchy—and turn around to face him, completely naked.

He’s undressing too, hanging his own sport coat on a hanger by the door and folding his slacks so that they don’t wrinkle. His shirt he seems to care less about because it’s ended up along with his tie on the desk next to Rey’s.

He’s still wearing his underwear and his socks—both black—but he’s frozen as he glances up at Rey standing there naked and waiting for him. He seems to drink her in and she—she’s frozen staring right back at him.

She’d expected the lines from his shoulders to his hips—she _hadn’t_ expected the _eight pack_ with a trail of dark hair that went from his belly button down to his cock. She hadn’t expected his arms to be so well defined in their muscles either. She’d been wrong. The complete picture of him—well, it was better than what she’d let herself begin to imagine in the car ride back from the event.

And from the look on his face, he’s having a similar reaction to her as his eyes rove from her tits down to the dark down that covers her sex. He’s breathing slowly. They haven’t turned on the lights—Rey hadn’t bothered since cats can see just fine without them in the dark—but she can see the way his pupils get even wider as he stares at her before bringing his eyes back to her face.

Then he pounces, and Rey doesn’t care because the moment his skin connects with hers, the moment they land with a sharp _umph_ on the bed behind her and all the air leaves her lungs from the weight of him, bliss runs through her body. Her legs snap around his hips and her hands fist in his hair and he’s reaching down between them, pulling his dick out of his underwear and shoving it right inside her and _yessssss._

Yes.

That is what she needs, that slick full feeling of cock jammed into her as deep as it’ll go, and she writhes underneath him, trying to pull him in deeper as his hips snap against hers. This is the good part of Heats, the way her whole body delights at being full of him, the way her blood is singing in her ears, her cunt is throbbing with delight as he sinks into her, his lips at her throat and his breathing ragged.

“God, you smell so,” his hips jerk into her as he growls, “fucking,” and again, “right.”

And Rey comes with a sharp moan, her fingers tightening into his back even as her legs go limp around his waist. It’s not a strong orgasm by any means. It’s a start, she knows, not the end of the night, and so she lets her body flood with warmth while he keeps jerking his hips into her, lets her head come back to her a little bit because a little bit is all she needs.

The edge is gone and Rey—

Well, Rey’s always been a shitty omega.

Ben’s older than her, and he doesn’t seem phased at all that she’s come already. She takes that as a good sign. Some of the younger alphas she’s been with have seen that as a sign of their prowess rather than a sign of her need. And so they really don’t like it when she does as she does with Ben now: shoving him so that he’s lying flat on his back and straddling him, her hands resting on his shoulders—keeping him where he is as she slows the motion of her hips. She’s sensitive from that first orgasm, and she wants the next one to hit her deeper.

She locks eyes with him, seeing surprise there. “You like to play, kitten?” he asks her, sounding amused.

“If I liked to play, you wouldn’t be here,” she responds, her voice low in her throat. She drops her lips to his collarbone and sucks on it, nipping at him lightly with her teeth.

“Show me what you’ve got, then,” he says and there’s a curious bemusement to his voice.

That’s about as good a response as she could have wished for, and she nips at him again—closer to his throat this time—and rubs her face against his neck. One of his hands curls up weave fingers through her hair and it’s only when they’re there that she realizes what instinct had made her do. She’s putting her scent on him with the glands next to her sinuses, right at one of his strongest pulse points. His nose will be even fuller of her than it already is. He seems to be enjoying it, though. His fingers are rubbing lightly at a spot behind her ears now and it feels so damn good that her eyelids flutter for just a moment.

No one’s ever rubbed behind her ears like that while she’s been in bed with them before.

“Are you purring for me?” There’s a smirk to his voice. “I thought you were supposed to be riding me.”

She hadn’t even realized she’d been humming softly until he’d spoken and she pulls away from his hand, sitting up and looking down at him. His hand is now lying lazily on the pillow by his head and the other one is drifting down towards her thigh. She’s still moving only a little bit, just enough to keep him amused and not enough to take his breath away.

“Or do you not know what to do—you just like playing at being an alpha?” She sees his eight-pack flex, knows he’s about to sit up and try to take control and she reaches for his shoulders again and thrusts against him, hard. His cock strikes her cervix and ordinarily, when she’s not in Heat, she doesn’t like that at all because it does actually hurt, but when she is in Heat—well it’s the best thing in the world, a pressure that twists up through her womb and stomach, buzzing all the way up her skin to her lips and she lets the need for that take over as she bucks her hips to him.

“Fuck,” she hears him choke out and his hands are on her hips now, his grip tight as though holding on for dear life as she slides herself up and down the length of him, and squeezing at him with the muscles he finds himself buried in. She lets that buzzing feeling build in her, lets her head fall back and her back arch thrusting her chest forward as she loses herself in the sensation of it all.

This is what she likes about Heats. Sex makes her feel alive in Heat.

She lets him sit up underneath her, lets him bury his face between her breasts. He thumbs her nipples and she lets out a moan from somewhere low in her throat. Her nipples have been hard for what feels like hours and when pointer fingers join his thumbs and he begins to roll them in his large hands. Rey starts to tremble because that—along with the warm buzzing and the delicious way she’s taking him as she rides him—that’s a recipe for exactly what she needs.

She lifts her head slightly and looks down at him. His lips are moving their way to her throat and she slows her hips for a moment to get his attention, reaching a hand up to run through his hair. She hadn’t expected it to be so soft. She finds the spot behind his ear used to make her purr and rubs at it until he does.

“Lick me?” She means it as a statement, a strong suggestion as she’s close, but instead it’s a question, a whimper, and Ben pulls away from her neck and looks up at her, and his eyes are so dark as they drink in her face. His nostrils flare for a moment, and then, without breaking eye contact, he bends to take one of her nipples in his mouth.

His lips are so hot and her nipples are so sensitive and his other hand leaves her breast to drop to her hips again and he’s guiding her faster again—not that Rey needs urging. What Rey really needs is to come, and it’s a little more difficult to ride him hard while he’s sitting up and his lips and teeth are nipping at her tits, but Rey’s nothing if not a determined person and before long she’s trembling and gasping as the orgasm rips through her—significantly stronger this time and enough to send her head spinning for the clouds as her heart races in her chest and her skin flashes hot and cold in time with her contracting cunt.

That, she thinks contentedly as she lets herself collapse forward onto Ben, pushing the both of them back to the mattress, should be enough to be getting on with for the time being. Her body no longer feels less like a coiled spring. It feels almost normal. Almost. She’s still aftershocking and she sucks at the skin of Ben’s neck as he gently jerks his cock into them. His skin tastes as good as it smells, she thinks. And he’s let her ride him and hadn’t seemed all alpha about it. He’s got his hands in her hair again, and it’s not long before she’s purring into his neck, rubbing more of her scent into him.

“Do you want me to knot you?” he asks her, his voice low, his voice  _alpha_ , and she stiffens.

She’s never been with a cat before. And knots only happen if you have the same species markers. And because he’s offering, because it’s possible, she nods into his neck.

And his dick is gone from inside her and he’s shifting from underneath her, rolling her onto her side then returning her so that she’s face down on the bed again. He’s pulling her hips up so that she’s on her knees, face still pressed against the pillows. “You’ve got a beautiful ass,” he tells her, and she feels his large hands squeezing it. She hums so that he knows that it feels good. “Do you like having your tail scratched?” And he scratches between her tailbone and her spine and she feels her back arch instinctively because it feels _divine._ “Yeah,” he is smirking again she can tell. “I thought so, kitten.”

And she feels the tip of his cock lining up with her entrance again and he pushes into her as he scratches her again and she cries out as her back arches again. And the rhythm he sets for himself is overwhelming and between his hand at her tailbone—and _how_ has she never tried that when masturbating—and the way he’s filling and voiding her with the long strokes of his cock, it’s not long before Rey is crying out incoherently and all the blood in her body is thundering in her ears as her heart pumps it through her in time with his movements. She’s gasping and choking and shuddering and purring and her cunt is twitching as though unsure when the orgasm will end, as though her body doesn’t know how to stop.

And then she feels it, feels the bulge at the base of his cock that swells through it and he lets out a strangled cry and the knot locks into place.

* * *

Rey has never in her life felt anything quite as strange as being knotted.

Ordinarily, she’s not one to cuddle after sex. She blames being a cat—even if the doctor told her she was likely a lion when push came to shove and lions are more social cats than others. It’s easier to blame being a cat than the simple fact that she just might not be a cuddler. But when Ben’s dick is literally trapped inside her, pulsing cum into her for however many minutes it’ll take him to come down, there’s nothing to do but let him spoon around her, rubbing the scent glands in his face into the back of her neck while he purrs quietly. She could almost get used to it—there’s something nice about feeling someone purring at her back. Except that being knotted feels goddamn _strange_.

“You keep making these noises,” Ben murmurs after a few minutes.

Rey is fully back to herself now. Her body is sated, relaxed, boneless, and her mind is at ease. But not quite at ease enough to just say what is running through her mind without a voice in her mind reminding her that it’s Leia Organa’s son behind her, pumping seed into her womb.

As if he read her mind, he whispers, “Leave the rest of it outside for a little while longer.” He brushes a kiss to her neck and that, more than him actually being inside her right now, is almost frighteningly intimate.

Rey’s not used to that. No one’s ever cared about where her head _shouldn’t_ be after sex. Sometimes alphas have tried to get her to focus on them, but Ben’s suggestion seems more about her than about him.

Rey swallows and he nuzzles at her again.

 _I’m going to smell so much like him,_ she thinks. Other alphas might not be able to smell her heat, but they’d sure as fuck smell Ben’s hormones on her tomorrow if she didn’t have time to shower before they headed off for their flight. Given that her body is sated, she is surprised at how much she likes that idea.

“It’s just really bizarre to feel the way your cum is pushing through my cervix into my uterus,” she tells him.

He snorts, and she rolls her eyes even though he can’t see her. “Is this your first time being knotted?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she admits. “You’re the first cat I’ve been with.”

His hand drifts along the curve of her hip and it sends an odd shiver down her spine that sends her wiggling back towards him as though the warmth in his chest will make it go away.

“So you’re just unused to the feeling?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she replies.

He pauses, then, “What does it feel like?”

She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder, to see if he’s mocking her but she finds only genuine curiosity in his eyes. “It’s like…it’s like it can’t go anywhere else. Your dick’s blocked out the other direction it can go, so it’s just kind of…shoving it’s way through my cervix. Like the opposite of my period.”

“Wait,” and the curiosity in his face only deepens, “Can you like…feel your blood passing through your cervix? When you’re on your period?” His face gets defensive in reaction to her expression, “Look—you brought it up and I’ve never had anyone talk about it before.”

“I didn’t until I started wearing a menstrual cup,” she says. “Like with pads or tampons, I couldn’t, but a menstrual cup sort of spreads you out and then you can just feel the blood dripping through your cervix.” That had taken some getting used to. She supposes this will too.

“So this is the opposite of that.” He sounds like he is trying to understand some sort of political theory or something far more complicated than menstrual blood and semen passing through her cervix.  It’s oddly endearing.

“Didn’t have your past knots tell you about what your cum feels like inside them?”

“Only ever in a dirty talk kind of way,” he shrugs. “And just the one. You’re the second cat I’ve been with.”

Suddenly, Rey feels distinctly less content. She imagines him stroking the ears or tailbone of some mysterious other omega, calling her kitten, making her purr, and she finds she doesn’t like it. _That’s just the Heat talking,_ she tells herself. It’s normal for a pair to get possessive during a Heat. Especially with the scent of each other rubbed into one another the way it is.

“Sorry,” she mumbles as she turns her head away from him. It’s not embarrassment or shame she feels. She feels like they shouldn’t be here, like she has messed everything up—just like she always has.

“Sorry? What for?”

“For being a shitty omega.”

He doesn’t say anything and she wishes his cock would get on with it so that she could get off him and bid him goodnight.

Ben shifts behind her and a moment later he’s looming over her in the darkness, propped up on his elbow.

“What about that was shitty?”

“That I…you know…” she can’t bring herself to say it.

“No, I don’t know. Say it,” he demands.

“That I wanted to be the dominant one, all right? That’s not what omegas are supposed to do. That’s _alphas_.”

He rolls his eyes. “That was hot,” he shrugs. “I really didn’t have a problem with it.” Then, almost as though he can’t quite believe the words coming out of his mouth, “I sort of liked it, actually.”

“You’d be the first,” Rey snaps.

“Well, maybe they were shitty alphas. Did that occur to you?”

That makes her snort, and the snort turns into a longer laugh because it’s such a silly way for him to compliment himself—showing that he’s the best alpha because he didn’t mind it when she’d behaved more like an alpha than an omega.

Again, it’s like he’s read her mind. “It’s not about whether I’m the alpha and you’re the omega,” he says and there’s an intensity to his voice that catches her wholly off guard because the only other time she’s heard him talk like that is when they’re in strategy meetings. “It’s about who we are. What we want. Our bodies only dictate so much. The rest is here.” He taps her breast, just above her heart. He bends his head to kiss her neck before settling back down behind her. “And like I said—it was hot. I liked it.”

She’s not sure if she believes him, but she also can’t see what he’d get from lying about it. The other alphas had made it quite clear what they’d thought of the matter almost immediately. _Show me what you’ve got, then,_ he’d told her. And he hadn’t seemed to mind that she’d been the one fucking him for a while, and not the other way around.

She feels him nuzzling his face into her hair again, bathing her in more of his scent. She closes her eyes, and lets her body start to purr.

She is asleep before his knot begins to loosen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Anib Ney](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Anib_Ney) is Leia's opponent in the primary. I haven't actually read _Bloodline_ I'm just trustfalling into some folks' recommendation for a present but not super characterized politician.
> 
> If you're new to ABO, here is [a decent summary of the trope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11605809/chapters/26214162#chapter_2_endnotes).
> 
> I'm taking the trope and twisting it a bit (as inspired by Misbehaving for Days). Rather than a traditional ABO dynamic for all humans, I'm breaking humans up into demihumans with animal species markers (the traditional Alpha and Omega in ABO context) and full humans (or fulls - aka the traditional Betas in the ABO context). Alphas and Omegas with different species markers will have "alpha and omega reactions" to one another (aka Heat and Rut), but there are some differences between "cross-species" interactions and "same-species" interactions (ie - knotting. Rey & Ben are able to knot because they both have a shared species marker (cat). There's a fox omega who will crop up later on in this fic (spoilers but no spoilers) so if she and Ben were to get down (spoiler alert that I don't care about: they won't), Ben would not be able to knot her.
> 
> The above means that various medications (like Rey's and Ben's suppressants) might be universal for all alphas & omegas, or they might be species specific. I started writing this fic right as I was getting into ABO for the first time, and based on how I'm seeing suppressants used in other fics, I think that the version of suppressants I am using is slightly different (though maybe not? Still newish to the trope!). In this fic, baseline suppressants are like low-dose birth control, where they don't erase the experience of your fluctuating hormones, but rather reduce and regulate your hormones so that you don't experience the symptoms of those hormones as intensely. Therefore: Rey on suppressants still experiences her Heat, but she does so in a significantly more manageable way than she did before she had access to suppressants. Because they reduce the experience of your hormones, it means that scents are not necessarily as powerful (so general alpha/omega scents might be much lighter) and depending on the drug you're taking, you might have suppressants that are effective against certain (or all) species, while some which are more effective against those who aren't her own species.
> 
> In terms of how frequently an omega goes into Heat, since they have both a menstrual and a heat cycle, I'm imagining that they have one period and one heat once a quarter or so. YMMV, as with most women, depending on personal hormonal fluctuations. Being on suppressants (especially ones that double as birth control) would likely regulate that timing.
> 
> Having different species markers for demis also means that there might be different locations for scent glands. Typically, ABO fics will place some scent glands in alphas/omegas necks; since Ben and Rey are both in the cat species, I'm putting them on their faces near their sinuses, since that is where actual cat scent glands are (this is why actual cats like to rub their faces against things--they are scenting!)
> 
> I think that's most of what crops up in this fic! If you have other questions, hmu in the comments and I'll update this author's note!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't planning to post this so quickly but
> 
>   1. I'm watching _The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride_ (AKA Furry Reylo) 
>   2. You all are the best with your wonderful reviews 
>   3. mrandmrssolo made me a [moodboard of this fic](https://galacticprideandprejudice.tumblr.com/post/173718615647/mrandmrssolo-rey-feels-the-beginning-of-her) which definitely had its intended effect and made me want to post so well done there ;-P
> 

> 
> Enjoy! 
> 
> Also--I added some explanations of ABO/my worldbuilding [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563752/chapters/33652536#chapter_1_endnotes) if you were interested in that after the last chapter!

She wakes to a phone ringing and lurches towards the bedside table to pick it up.

“Hello?” she mumbles.

“Hello Ms. Johnson,” says a much-too-chipper voice given that it is pitch black outside. “Rose Tico in room 615 wanted to make sure you had a wakeup call this morning. She said you have a flight to catch.”

“Thanks,” Rey says and hangs up the phone.

She can’t tell if she wants to kick Rose or kiss her. On the one hand, she is awake and Rose knows that she struggles getting up in the morning and that, especially in Heat, she might have had trouble sleeping. On the other hand, she is awake and it’s…Rey checks her phone and groans.

She’ll be able to sleep on the plane, she supposes. She turns on the light, flinching as the light accosts her dark vision. She turns to look behind her on the bed before frowning. Ben’s not there. His clothes are still in her room, and she doubts very much he’d gone strolling through the hotel butt naked. Although she has seen alphas do stupider things. But she hears water running and gets up and goes to the bathroom, knocking lightly.

He opens the door from inside. The room is dark, but he doesn’t need the light to see. Rey reaches for the light switch and he hisses.

“I need it to wake up,” she tells him. “I hate it too.”

“Fine,” he grumbles and she sees him reach up to cover his eyes as well.

“Holy shit,” Rey says, staring at him. “I’m sorry.” She reaches up to run her fingers over his neck and collarbone, which had purpled almost horrifically from her lips and teeth the night before. He looks as though he’s been throttled.

He heaves a long-suffering sigh. “It’s nothing. I bruise like a banana.” There’s a slight pink tinge to his cheeks. Rey bites back a smile and slips past him to turn on the water for a shower. She feels his hand on her back, trailing down her spine to her tailbone and her hips jerk when he finds that spot again.

“Can I make a suggestion?” he asks, his voice low, and the tone of it goes right to her cunt.

“Is it what I think it is?”

“Yes.”

“Do we have time before we have to head out? I don’t much fancy the idea of having to tell the ops center that we missed the flight because we were fucking.”

“I won’t knot you,” he says. “But it’s a seven hour flight and even with the suppressants you’re taking and the remnants of a few hours ago, you’re going to be getting hot probably before we’ve reached cruising altitude. And I _really_ don’t want to spend a full seven hours with a hard-on when my mother can smell that.”

Rey chokes.

“It won’t be that bad, surely,” she says, needing to believe it. “Our seats aren’t near each other.”

“Were you in that elevator last night?” he asks dryly. “Because I was and that plane is bigger, but seven hours of stale air means I’ll catch you. I caught you from fifty feet away in a heavily ventilated room last night.”

Rey takes a deep breath and drags his lips down to hers. They step under the water and everything gets sharper. Rey learned long ago that wetness heightens her sense of smell. She’d hated rain during her younger Heats. Her one had happened during a wave of thunderstorms, and she had been able to smell every alpha for miles.

Now she just smells Ben as they stand beneath the water. He grabs soap, and a washcloth, and a moment later she feels the washcloth spreading suds across her skin. The smell of the soap fills her nose—a neutral lemony tinge to the otherwise heady aroma of the bathroom. He runs the washcloth over her neck, washing away the scent he’d rubbed there the night before, over her breasts—she assumes just for fun—and then down between her legs, sudsing her pubic hair before letting the cloth drop to the ground of the bathtub with a splat.

They’re quick and careful—aware that time is not endless and that they are also in a slippery shower and that as much as they don’t want to miss their flight because they’re too lost in fucking one another, they don’t want an added component to that being found in the shower unconscious with concussions because they slipped and fallen. Ben coaxes a decent orgasm out of her, considering the time constraints, before he pulls out of her and finishes himself on her stomach. His cum smells amazing, but the water rinses it off her quickly and she bends down and picks up the washcloth and soaps herself again for good measure. Then she steps out of the shower, leaving him to finish getting her scent off him as he pleases.

She is brushing her teeth as he steps out of the shower and presses a kiss to her shoulder. Then he goes out into the room, dresses and slips out into the hotel to get his things and get ready for the road.

* * *

“How are you feeling?” Rose asks as they sit in the terminal, waiting for the gate attendants to tell them to board. Rose has two coffees and presses one into Rey’s hand.

“Good,” Rey smiles at her. “I slept…” She pauses before realizing she doesn’t actually know what time she and Ben had finished the night before. “A few hours at least.”

“Able to keep it under control?” Rose asks, glancing around.

Rey takes a sip of coffee, hoping it will hide the flush. It’s probably—probably—her overactive imagination, but sometimes when she goes from sitting to standing she thinks she can still feel Ben’s cum inside her uterus, the opposite of period cramps.

“Well, as a friend, if you ever need my services,” Rose winks.

Rey snorts. “Don’t let Finn hear you say that, or else you’re really screwed.”

Rose makes a face. “I’m starting to think I need to go full alpha and hit him over the head. Do you think he’d notice then?”

Rey pats her arm sympathetically. “He’s just really obtuse, isn’t he?”

“I wish I didn’t think it were so cute,” sighs Rose, resting her head on Rey’s shoulder. Across several rows of seats at the gate, Rey sees Ben’s head twist slightly in their direction and she knows he’s watching. And probably doesn’t like another alpha resting her head on Rey’s shoulder while she’s in Heat and they’d fucked less than two hours before. _Better not tell him who set up the wake up call for me,_ Rey thinks, amused. Ben can handle his shit. She gives him a slight smile as Rose sighs and sits up.

“Ordinarily, I’d make a joke about how aren’t guys supposed to think two girls going at it is hot or something, but I don’t think Finn is that kind of guy.”

Rey shakes her head and Rose takes a sip of her own coffee, her eyes scanning the gate. Rey knows she’s looking for Finn, who had gone off for a walk with Poe right as Rey had gotten through security. She feels Rose stiffen next to her and the other girl whirls to look at her, frowning. Then, Rey sees her sniff.

“You _didn’t_ ,” Rose hisses, leaning her body away from Rey even as she bends her head closer to her to hiss, “ _Did you fuck Ben Solo last night_?”

Rey’s head snaps to look at Ben, who’s watching them, not even bothering to be paying attention to the people talking around him as they are briefing the General with the rundown of their very long day.

“ _Oh my god you did. That’s why you’re so calm. He knotted you and you’re full of his—_ ”

“Rose,” Rey hisses, turning back to her and grabbing her wrist. “Shhh.”

Rose shuts up and Rey looks around to see if anyone near them might be eavesdropping, but most of the other campaign staffers are either hunched over computers, or are zoned out because the sun isn’t even up yet and most of them probably didn’t get quite as much sleep as she did because they’d have stayed at the event for longer the night before.

They stare at each other for a long moment before Rose sighs. “Well, that’s on you I guess,” she says. “I can’t fathom fucking him—he’s such an asshole on _top_ of everything he did while working for Snoke—but Heats call for desperate measures.” She gives Rey an apologetic smile.

Rey bites her lip. Ben had been oddly sweet last night. And this morning before he’d slipped out of her room. But she knows that Rose wouldn’t hear that if she told her. So instead she just takes a sip of coffee. “Please don’t say anything,” she says at last.

Rose gives her a look. “You know I won’t,” she says. “But make sure you tell him to stop looking daggers at me for being your friend because that’ll give the ghost away pretty damn fast.”

Rey pulls out her phone and finds the text chain from the night before. She hadn’t added his contact info—she does now and sends him a text.

_Leave Rose alone. Do you want people to notice?_

Across the rows of seats, she sees Ben check his phone. He begins to type.

_Instinct. Sorry._

He shifts in his seat and turns towards his mother and tries to bring himself into the conversation. How the General manages to look this awake, Rey has no idea.

Finn and Poe return from their walk just as the gate attendants announce that it’s time to board the plane and Rey finishes her coffee and gets to her feet. She and Rose settle themselves towards the back of the plane in a row with Finn (Rey conveniently puts herself in the window seat so the two are sitting next to one another). Ben’s up in First Class with his mother, Poe, and a handful of other people who the General will be having meeting with when they’re in the air.

Rey lets herself doze off while the plane taxis, waking up when the captain’s voice comes in over the radio telling them that they’ve reached cruising altitude fills the cabin. Rose is asleep next to her, her head on Finn’s shoulder —thankfully, because if Ben catches a whiff of her on Rey she imagines more of his instinct might take over. Finn’s asleep too, and Rey digs down into her backpack and tugs out her laptop, connecting it and her cell phone to the plane’s wifi and searching through the Big Cats Forum.

Without parents to turn to to explain _what_ was happening to her body when she'd been younger, Rey had turned to the internet. Rey had lurked on the Big Cats Forum for years, and the omegas in the subforums had answered more questions than she had even known how to ask, had linked her to information she’d never have found otherwise, and sometimes just…made her feel like she wasn’t alone. She trusts that forum, has been guided by that forum, and it is to that forum that she turns now with all her discomfort about what on earth is going on.

She searches, first, for her suppressants. Three threads come up.

_My alpha’s a dog and we were thinking about changing my away from Felicium so he can still scent me. What are the side effects of the change?_

_Do I need to supplement with an additional birth control? Want to know what to talk to my doctor about._

_Felicium doesn’t fucking work. My alpha and I have been dying all day._

Rey clicks into the third—because she already knows that her suppressants double as a birth control because she’d made it clear to her doctor that a dual purpose suppressant would be much better than juggling two prescriptions—and begins to read.

 _I’m a leopard, my alpha’s a mountain lion and I swear to god my Heats are_ worse _than they were before I got on this goddamn suppressant. It’s fine in that I can go longer without him rutting me/knotting me, but when I’m hot I’m_ hot, _and I’m a goner if I scent him at all. The whole point of these pills is that they’re supposed to make it easier, not harder._

The replies underneath clarified:

_You’re both cats. That’s the problem. Either you get a weaker suppressant that works on everyone but might not make the symptoms as manageable or you get a stronger one (like this one) that doesn’t work on cats. As to why it’s worse—that might be a dosage issue? Check with your doctor?_

Rey grimaces. Well, that explained the night before, at least. It’s somehow both depressing and affirming that she’d been right.

Which brings her too her next search. She types knotting into the forum search tool.

Over six hundred entries pop up— _Share your best knotting stories!_ And _Never knotted—does it hurt?_ And _My husband knotted outside me and holy shit it looks so strange._

Rey grimaces. She’s avoided posting her own thread on the board until now. She’s posted a few comments—one about her experience with a fox alpha and another asking if anyone had recommendations for suppressants that weren’t too expensive before she’d had her insurance (they’d all been by far and away out of budget and like hell was she borrowing money from Unkar Plutt because she knew he’d lord it over her for the rest of her days. She’d rather be miserable than indebted).

She takes a deep breath, glances at Rose who could easily read her screen. She’s still fast asleep, and so Rey begins to type.

 _Knotting + suppressant question—I’m taking Felicium and last night—_ she pauses weighing how to phrase it. “My alpha” feels too intimate, somehow— _the alpha I’m with right now knotted me. I’ve never been with a cat before, so it was my first time being knotted—how long does it usually take before the heat comes back? It’s probably been like seven hours at this point (+ a quickie earlier) and I’m feeling normal still but am nervous about the timing of when it might wear off._

 _Here goes nothing_ , she thinks as she hits the post button.

It’s all she can do not to obsessively refresh the page. It’s still ridiculously early but it’s not long before she has a reply.

_I’m not on the same suppressants as you, so I can’t say if this is right, but when my alpha knots me it’s usually like…six hours or so before I need him again so long as I haven't missed a dosage earlier in my cycle. IDK how good the quickie was but you might be cutting it close._

Rey replies immediately.

_Just what I want to see at the start of a 7 hour plane ride._

And then, because she’s not rude, she adds, _thanks so much,_ in a second comment.

Rey decides now is not the time to wait for more replies. She’ll just be sitting there, feverishly refreshing the page, waiting for some blessed omega to tell her actually she’ll last a full day, or actually her Heat is over now, and she rather suspects that the first commenter will have the right of it.

Suddenly the plane feels so very small.

Rey crosses her legs and her arms, and closes her eyes, leaning her head against the wall of the plane next to her, willing herself to sleep.

She wakes sometime later, much too hot and with the distinct and uncomfortable sensation of having soaked through her underwear, and, worse, she thinks in her sleep she’d been shifting her hips to give herself friction between her legs. Her nipples are so hard she can see them poking through the padding of her bra and the front of her shirt and she is breathing hard—and she can’t tell if it’s panic or arousal.

Rose is awake now, as is Finn. They are bent over Finn’s computer, reading through polling data in the south in the ramp up to Super Tuesday. Rose’s computer is open on the tray table in front of her. Rey pulls out her computer again and opens her texting app, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

She wants to text Rose, but Finn’s right there. Rey trusts Finn with her life—she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Finn because he’d been the one to see the volunteer ads to begin with. But Finn’s a full, and though he’s very defensive of anyone who might give either her or Rose shit for being demis, she isn’t sure she can quite let him in on the personal state of panic she’s in right now.

Especially not since he doesn’t know about Ben.

She opens her forum again instead, angling her computer away from both of them and reading the four replies that have come in since she went back to sleep.

_Sis, you’re gonna be so screwed on that flight. Take a sleeping pill or something._

_I’m on Felicium too and it’s usually like eight hours I think? But yeah, not looking good for your flight :-(_

_I know you’re not supposed to do this—go jerk off in one of the bathrooms. It helps. And if you’re hot enough, it’ll only take a few minutes. If you need to do it more than once, pretend you have a bad stomach._

_It depends a bit on bodyweight as well as prescription strength but yeah, I’d say between 6-8 hours is a good estimate._

Rey begins to type.

_I just woke up and it’s hellish. Thanks everyone. I’ll…figure something out._

She stares at the screen, her mind blank. She could very easily go to the bathroom and finger herself quickly. That doesn’t seem like a bad suggestion.

Except for what that thread from earlier in the morning had said about the heats being worse if she catches Ben’s scent. She sniffs. No sign of it yet. Maybe if she goes and takes care of herself now, and is able to keep it under control, the smell of her won’t hit him? There are worse things than pretending she has a bad stomach. Rose will probably know what’s up, and Finn will be sympathetic and not question it.

 _Or you could solicit Ben to see if he wants to join the mile high club_ , a very unhelpful part of her brain suggests and Rey groans.

“You ok?” Finn asks, and because the excuse is so ready at hand, she replies,

“Stomach doing weird things.” She unbuckles her seatbelt and Finn and Rose make way for her to get out of the row and to the back of the plane and the bathroom cabins. One is open thank god and she pushes her way into it, lifts one leg so that it’s resting on the toilet seat, shimmies her pencil-skirt a little higher up her ass, shoves aside her useless wet underwear, and shoves four fingers into her sopping cunt. She shoves her free hand into her mouth to stifle a groan and lets herself lean back so her ass is resting against the sink.

It doesn’t feel anywhere near as good as Ben’s dick had, but she doesn’t let herself dwell on that thought as she pumps her hand inside her as fast and hard as she can, thumbing her clit and biting her hand, hard. She closes her eyes and pretends it’s Ben’s hand, tries to summon the scent of him to her mind, the way his abs had rippled as he’d sat up underneath her the night before, the way the swelling of his knot had locked inside her, how he hadn’t cared that she’d wanted to be in control.

Her Heat breaks over her and her cunt clutches at her fingers as she sags against the sink. Relief floods her, and she lets herself breathe for a moment before pulling her fingers back out of her. She washes her hands three times to do her best to get her scent off them. She is going to have to hide those teeth marks from Finn because she has no idea how she’ll explain them to him. Then she glances at herself in the mirror.

“I don’t look like I just came,” she tells herself, needing to believe it. Then she leaves the bathroom and makes her way back to her seat.

Rose has texted over the wifi her while she was in the bathroom.

_You ok?_

Rose has angled her computer away from Finn now, thank god, and Rey replies at once.

_Please please please please please tell me you can’t smell me._

_Nothing. Apart from a lot of soap._

_And that you soaked your panties through._

_Ugh. But not Heat, right?_

_Nope. I was sitting right next to you for a good hour before you woke up and I got nothing._

_Did you just jerk it?_

_Yeah._

_How much longer do we have in flight?_

_Four hours?_

_Fuck._

_Anything I can do? Short of something that would probably make Ben go all primal on me? Because I do actually have a sense of self-preservation and he’s literally twice my size._

_Just…help keep Finn distracted and help me pretend that I have a bad stomach right now if I need to go take care of myself again._

Rey stares at her computer. She checks her work email while her brain is still functioning properly—apparently the polls have them neck and neck in four states now, but Poe is telling them all not to get too cocky about it—before taking a deep breath and texting Ben.

_You can’t scent me, right?_

He doesn’t reply right away, which she’s glad of. She doesn’t think thinking about him will help, because it’s all she can do to keep images of him naked from the night before out of her head. She focuses instead on catching up on some strategy reports for the west, combing through social media in swing states to try and find anything that might become a bigger story that she’d need to warn volunteers about.

Stewards and stewardesses pass through every now and then with drinks or snacks and Rey takes deep breaths because if she takes deep breaths and wills it hard enough, maybe she’ll be able to stave off her Heat.

_No._

_Not yet anyway._

_You ok?_

_For now._

_I might have done something unsanitary in one of the lavatories._

_As any self-respecting person would in this situation._

_Let me know if you need help. I’m in meetings but I’ll make an excuse._

_No, that’ll be really obvious._

_True._

_But I’m not sure I care._

_I care._

_So that’s that._

_Yes ma’am._

_Don’t yes ma’am me._

_I’m serious._

_That was a serious yes ma’am._

Rey rolls her eyes and checks the clock. They’re closer to three hours away now and she’s already getting a head of steam to match the overheating rest of her. This is not a good sign.

 _They’re suppressants. I’m not supposed to be doing this,_ she thinks wildly as she opens up the forum window and adds another reply to her post.

_Next question: the Felicium doesn’t seem to be working very well in that my refractory period is basically as short as when I didn’t take anything at all. Please tell me this isn’t because I got knotted last night._

She tabs over to her email again and opens one of the emails containing a summary of press clippings from the night before. There are some good photos from the event, of the General speaking with light in her eyes about the hope she has for the future.

Unhelpfully, one of the photos was taken right at the exact moment that Ben had looked over and scented her—she can tell because she’ll never so long as she lives forget the way his face had looked on the screen and there it is, magnified next to his mother as she speaks. The look of it catches in her throat and she feels her heart skip a beat.

She tabs back to the forum.

_It’s the altitude probably. Mine did wonky things when I went up to the mountains a few months back. I haven’t been on long enough flights during my Heats to say what it’s like 20,000 feet up, but a mile up it took an hour off my refractory period._

Rey opens another tab to look up how many feet are in a mile.

She takes a deep breath.

 _Why did no one warn me about that?_ she thinks angrily at her Felicium.

All the things her doctor hadn’t warned her about, that she might have prepared for, or something. She’d have gone to sleep last night and made Ben knot her this morning if she’d known she’d have next to no refractory period in the air. She _hates Heats._

“Rey?” Finn asks, his voice quiet and she glances over at him. It’s only then that she realizes there are angry tears in her eyes. “Everything ok?”

She reaches up and rubs her eyes. “Fine,” she mutters. “I’m fine.”

He glances at Rose, who gives him a shrug and immediately later, a text from Rose comes out over the wifi.

_Hormones?_

_I’m on forums and apparently I have no refractory period in the air so basically I want to die._

_Noooooooooooooooooo_

_Yeah_

_So I’m probably going to be faking a stomach problem a lot because otherwise I’m going to want to rip my own skin off._

_Is it worth trying to get Ben to help you or something? His cum will calm you down, right?_

_He offered._

_And why aren’t you taking him up on it?_

_Because I don’t want people to know about us._

_I’d call this an emergency situation. I don’t think anyone on this campaign is allowed to judge a demi in Heat without getting their ass fired by the General personally._

Rey swallows and looks at Rose. Rose gives her a sympathetic smile, and begins to type, still looking at Rey.

_I still can’t scent you. I’ll let you know the second I start to if I do. I promise._

“Bathroom,” Rey mutters and Rose and Finn get up for her again. She’s halfway down the aisle when she sees the stewards begin to roll their refreshment cart towards her.

“Excuse me,” the steward says to her, “Can we push by.”

And because Rey’s a fool and doesn’t think to make Finn and Rose push into their row, she moves a little further down the aisle before reaching an empty seat she can let the stewards pass in.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she reads a text from Ben with one word.

_Shit._

And the scent of him blooms through the airplane, all rich and musky and _alpha_ , and Rey’s hand tightens on the seat. She practically sprints back down the aisle towards the bathrooms, but both are full. She pulls out her phone and texts him over the wifi.

_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_

He doesn’t reply right away and she hopes he knows she’s retreated to the back of the plane. Maybe her scent has gone away now that she’s further back. She doesn’t particularly dare hope that. She can still smell him, after all, can practically breathe him, and her heart is thudding in her chest because _why_ _is she hiding from him?_ He smells so good so right so alpha he has already fucked her he’ll do it again and it will be perfect perfect perfect and she wants him more than she wants to breathe. They can both fit in the lavatory—they definitely can. It’ll be tight because he’s so tall and his shoulders are so broad, but it’s doable, that’s why people call it the mile high club—because people do it.

_I can’t get out of this meeting._

She hates the words that flash across her screen as Kaydel leaves one of the lavatories and Rey hurries inside it, slamming the door closed behind her.

_There’ll be other opportunities. Apparently I have no refractory period in the air. Ha. Ha. Ha._

_Fuck._

_Can you still smell me?_

_It doesn’t work that way. I caught you. I’ll have your scent for a few hours in case I need to trace you._

Rey closes her eyes. She’d known that. She’d known that, just as she knows the smell of him will be in her nose likely until they’re on the ground.

She puts her phone back in her blazer and repeats her earlier efforts to make herself come as hard and fast as she can. It’ll be easier now that more than the memory of last night’s scent is in her nose.

Her phone buzzes twice in her pocket and were her hands not both occupied she’d reach for it to see what Ben has sent her. Somehow, she knows he wouldn’t be offended at her reading his texts while masturbating. That thought plus the fact that she can still taste him as she breathes sends her head spinning and her body shuddering.

She washes her shaking hands and checks her phone again.

_And my mom knows. Great. Just great._

_About me, not you._

_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_

He doesn’t reply right away.

He’d explicitly said he didn’t want his mom to know this morning before they’d fucked in her shower. She’d been so _stupid_.

She stares at her phone screen. _About me, not you._

_She can probably put two and two together._

_About me, I mean._

_I don’t think there are any other cats on this plane, except maybe for the stewards._

_She knows you’re a cat?_

_We talked about it once._

_Well, that’s the ballgame, then._

_If I can get out of these meetings, I’m going to find you. Any objections?_

_Let me think about it._

_Rey._

_Let me think about it._

_I will._

_But I’m very close to full Rut right now._

_At the very least I’m fucking you the second we get off this plane. Any objections to that?_

_Don’t we have a stump to be at?_

_I do not care._

_No objections. I’ve been faking sick so it shouldn’t be hard to say I need to lie down._

_Oh I’ll lie you down._

Rey groans.

_Please don’t say things like that while my refractory period is next to nothing._

_Sorry._

She looks at herself in the mirror again, straightens her skirt again then returns to her seat.

Finn and Rose are talking through an interview that just aired in one of the neck-and-neck states of Ney.

“He say anything interesting?” Rey asks, trying to drag herself back to reality as best she can. Ben’s scent is still in her nose, but not as thick now that she’d come again.

They get her up to speed and Rey keeps an eye on the texting app on her computer. She texts Rose so that Rose knows.

_Ben scented me._

_Ugh. You can’t catch a break._

_Nope._

_Are you two gonna do something about it?_

_If he can get out of his meetings._

She sits there for an hour, feeling her Heat rise again, and time ticks on as her nipples stiffen and her underpants begin to soak through again. Her breathing is getting shallow, and she finds she can’t focus on the computer in front of her at all. She can feel each thread of fabric in her shirt. She can smell everything on this airplane.

She texts Ben.

_How’s it going?_

He doesn’t reply. She wishes she didn’t feel disappointed that he’d gotten control of his attention. The hotter she gets the more she does not care about whether the entire fucking plane hears him make her scream.

That thought more than anything makes her take a deep breath.

Yes, she does care about that.

No, that’s just her body talking and she knows it. She had learned long ago how to keep herself from doing things she’d later regret during her Heat. She can do that now.

She’s about to get up and go to the bathroom again when the radio system makes a melodic dinging noise and Rey groans.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to run into some turbulence and the captain is turning on the fasten seat belts sign. We’re anticipating the bumpy air is gonna take us all the way home, so sit tight for the next hour please. The good news is we’ve been cleared to land a little bit early.”

Rey doesn’t care if Ben gets primal on Rose—she reaches over and squeezes Rose’s hand as she bites back a whimper.

A text from Ben flashes across the screen of her computer.

_This is going to be bad._

And he’s not wrong.

Every time the plane bumps, Rey’s whole body lurches. Her heart is beating wildly against her rib cage and she’s biting her lip to keep from whimpering. _This? For another hour?_

She wants to cry.

She might actually be sick this time.

She can smell Ben’s scent now, thick and heavy in the air and she’s sure hers is too. She slams her computer closed and shoves it in her bag and Finn leans around Rose and asks, “Do you need a vomit bag?”

“I don’t think so,” she says. “I’m just gonna close my eyes.”

And it’s like she’s back on his dick again from the night before, her hands on his shoulders, his eyes boring into her as she rides him. The scent of him is so thick in the air that between the lurching airplane and her thudding heart—

She opens her eyes and looks around wildly.

No.

No she is not coming in the main cabin she refuses to.

She refuses.

She fumbles for her phone and begins texting Ben.

_Please tell me you’re doing better than me._

_Probably not._

_I don’t really want to talk about it right now. Your scent is really really heavy and I’m trying to focus on all the things I’m going to do to you when we get off this plane rather than my anger at the whole situation._

Rey’s stomach twists in a whole new way.

_Sorry. I wasn’t supposed to say things like that._

_I think we’re well into the danger territory already. I’m just trying not to come in the main cabin right now._

_Ok you really can’t say shit like that._

_Also please don’t do that. I don’t know what I’ll be able to keep myself from doing._

_We’re in this together and I’m trying._

The plane makes a particularly painful lurch and Rey gasps as her butt physically leaves the seat and then smacks back down onto it in a truly delicious way.

How she makes it through the rest of the plane ride without coming or crying, Rey will never be entirely sure. The landing is not smooth, and when she turns her signal back on, a text from Ben comes through immediately.

_I’m going to the hotel. We shouldn’t ride in the same car or else someone’s going to get a show. I’ll let you know my room number when I get there since I imagine I’m going to beat you there._

_Sounds like a plan._

She lets herself sit there, totally limp, forcing her mind to go blank as she'd learned how to make it through years without suppressants while everyone bustles around her, gathering their belongings.

“Rey?” Finn asks and there’s such concern in his voice as he looks down at her.

She gives him a faint smile. “I’m all right,” she tells him. “But I may call out sick for the first stump.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say,” Finn says. “I’ll let Poe know. You head straight to the hotel.”

“Can we get you anything?” Rose asks.

Rey shakes her head and takes Finn’s hand and lets him help her to her shaky feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a head's up, there will likely be a longer delay between this chapter and the next than between this chapter and the first. This is not ~~entirely~~ because I want to be an asshole who makes you all sit waiting for the next installment, but rather the next chapter is where some of the bigger edits I have yet to make kick in and I want to get those sorted and don't know if I'll be able to before the weekend (though I can live in hope). So sit tight--you'll get the next chapter soon!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your reviews are making me so happy y'all, I'm so glad you're enjoying this trash heap of a fic. 
> 
> Check out [this lovely moodboard](https://galacticprideandprejudice.tumblr.com/post/173765572202/rileybabe-i-want-to-wail-at-the-moon-like-a) [@rileybabe](https://rileybabe.tumblr.com/) made of this fic!
> 
> Now without further ado, here have some boning.

_309_

His text arrives while she’s in her cab, her legs crossed tightly and her arms crossed over her chest and her ridiculously stiff nipples. She can see herself in the driver’s rearview mirror. She does look a little feverish—sweaty and her skin splotching under her tan.

_I want to remind you that I don’t want my clothes ripped._

She sees the read receipt, sees him start to type, sees him stop typing, sees him start to type again.

_Yes._

She doesn’t even bother checking in when she gets to the hotel. Something tells her that she’ll be spending tonight in the same room as Ben, so it just feels like a waste of time. And she didn’t sit through that horrible plane ride to waste any more time. She just goes straight to the elevator and presses the up button.

_In the elevator._

She can smell him the closer to the room she gets and if she weren’t already hot enough, her heart begins to drum against her chest.

He opens the door before she even has time to knock, wearing only a pair of dark boxer shorts, and he’s yanking her through, pulling her close to him as he pushes the door shut behind her. She’s quivering, shaking, her knees positively weak from the past few hours but he’s holding her up and that’s enough to start with. His chest is firm against hers, and his penis is impossibly hard, pressing into her stomach.

She reaches up to run her hands through his hair. He half-moans half-purrs at her touch and the sound is too much for her and she rolls her stomach against his cock.

Her fingers tighten in his hair. “Ben,” she moans and he reaches down and tugs at the zip on her skirt, letting it pool on the floor at her feet. He sinks to his knees and looks up at her. Without breaking eye contact, as if showing her that he can restrain himself, that he can adhere to her demand that he not rip her clothes from her body, that he can have control for her, he slides her panties down her legs.

He presses his nose against her pubis, running it through her hair, still looking up at her, his pupils so wide, so dark that she feels almost as though she can see into his soul. It makes her breath catch in her chest for just a moment—just long enough for her to squeak with shock when his hands come to rest on her hips and pull her a little closer to her as he buries his lips against her cunt.

The words, “oh fuck,” rip out of her mouth as his tongue slides up into her slit, lapping at every drop of moisture he finds there. Rey rocks her hips against his face, needing more of the contact, needing his tongue to go deeper. Her fingers lock in his hair and his tighten against her hips as he brings his tongue up towards the top of her slit and—

It barely connects with her clit before her knees go weak and she practically collapses into his hands. She lets go of his hair, her eyes flying open as her hands flail out trying to find something—ideally attached to the wall—to hold her up as she gasps and shudders.

He pulls away from her cunt and murmurs, “I’ve got you, kitten. Let go.” And she lets herself sink to the floor next to him, leaning her head against his chest as he wraps her arms around her and squeezes her to him again, running his nose through the skin behind her ears.

“Knot me,” she whispers into his chest. “Please.” She wants to feel boneless again. She wants to feel relief. She wants to feel cool.

He pulls away from her. “I was going to drink you dry first,” and his fingers slip across her hips to her cunt again and he rests them over her clit. “This thing has caused me more than enough trouble today and I wanted to have words with it.”

Rey snorts and rolls her eyes at him, and he flushes a bit.

“There’s no good way to say I want you to sit on my face.”

“Saying exactly that would have worked,” she says. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and pulls herself to her feet again. Her legs feel a little more stable now and she reaches a hand out to him. He takes it and gets up as well and she loves the way his body moves so fluidly, the way his muscles ripple as he moves, the way his abs taper into his hips.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his hand move and thinks he’s about to reach up and cup her face, to kiss her, maybe, but instead he finds the buttons at the top of her blouse and begins to undo them—quickly and easily. He pushes both blouse and blazer off her shoulders to join her skirt and panties on the floor. Then he reaches behind her and unfastens the back of her bra with a quick movement of his hands. She lets it fall down her arms as she looks up at him. He’s drinking her in, his nostrils flared.

He looks almost as though he’s entranced by her, as though he can’t believe that she’s there.

Which has to be the hormones.

So Rey reaches out and takes his hand and, stepping out of her shoes, leads him towards the bed, before turning and pushing him down onto it. He scoots himself to the center, lying down so that his head is against a pillow. His eyebrows twitch at her and Rey kneels on the bed next to him. “Which direction?” she asks. She has never sat on an alpha’s face before. Lied there with her legs over his shoulder until she’d forgotten her own name, yes, but never this.

“I get a better angle if you’re facing away from me,” he shrugs. “But whatever you want.”

So Rey straddles him, and his hands are on her hips again, guiding her hips lower and lower and lower until she feels his tongue flick her clit, and a light noise of some sort leaves the back of her throat. The sensation is over just as soon as it began, and she turns to look back at him. She can’t see his face, though—her ass is in the way, and one of the hands on her hips moves to flatten over her stomach. Then his tongue is back and he’s licking her so very slowly now that she’s tempted to hiss at him. But no—no, he’ll get her there. He’ll get her there—because he already has done that once. She can’t have already forgotten that. She’d come and collapsed into his arms and now they’re on the bed and his tongue is tracing along the length of her slit, prodding into the folds of her labia as though simply curious to see how deep they are.

She closes her eyes and lets herself go.

She isn’t on the airplane anymore. She doesn’t have to worry about her Heat because Ben is drinking it in. Her uterus might be swollen and cramping inside her but the Heat, at least, is reducing and that’s enough for her right now. Every time more wet drips out of her, his tongue finds it. Every time she makes a little noise in the back of her throat, his thumb on her stomach strokes her skin lightly, as though trying to soothe her.

And her head wants to be soothed, is aware of how keyed up she had been. But his scent is too strong for that, and the more that she breathes him in, the more aware she is of what she needs.

“Ben,” she whispers to him, trying—between his tongue and scent—to convey to him that she needs something else from him. But he doesn’t reply except to suck at her skin, to tighten his hands on her hips and she knows he knows, and she wriggles, trying to come faster because if she comes faster then maybe he’ll knot her and her uterus will calm down and her skin will stop drawing heat from it.

Rey’s hands had been resting on her knees. That, she had thought, would be the best way to keep herself balanced when she needed it. But his tongue is so light on her at just this moment that she moves them to circle the flat disks of his nipples.

She feels his breath hitch for a moment, feels his tongue pause, considering. Then it flattens against her clit and she cries out. She hasn’t come yet, but fuck if blood isn’t pounding in her ears as he swipes his tongue over that little nub and Rey’s trying to remember what she was doing with her hands but her mind whites out and all she can hear is her own pumping heart and the raw gasps that seem to be coming from her chest somehow.

Her whole body seems to have curled in on itself as she came, her stomach crunching her forward and she’s vaguely aware of Ben’s lips smiling into her cunt before the hand on her stomach moves around to stroke her tailbone and her entire spine arches and she cries out more in surprise than in pleasure. Her hips press towards his mouth again and Ben seems to be done with his soothing licks. This time, his tongue is focused, swirling around her clit, pressing into it, and she’s too sensitive for that kind of stimulation, she’s too sensitive, but he doesn’t seem to care at all and a moment later she’s coming again, more sharply than she has before, the muscles in her stomach, in her shoulders spasming in time with the erratic beating of her racing heart.

He’s still licking at her, slower again now, and despite her hope that maybe if she came, he’d push her off him and fuck her, until she was so full of his come that she’d be overflowing with it, she realizes that that had been a naïve hope. He is waiting, she realizes. He has marked his prey, is calculating, and preparing to pounce.

“Please,” she mumbles, a shadow of the proud lioness who had ridden him into the abyss the night before. That woman is a stranger to her now. That woman had not been bested by her own body for hours on end. “Please.” But she doesn’t even know what she’s begging for. For her body to stop needing him, perhaps, for her heart to go still, for the scent of him to curl around her until she falls asleep.

He laves her lightly, his fingers holding her very still and Rey lets her eyes drift open.

The room is bright. It is early in the day out west, and the sun is bright even through the closed curtains of the hotel room. Everything in the room is white, and clean, and it makes the black of Ben’s boxer shorts pop out that much more against the blankets. There’s a damp spot on the front of them from where his cock is leaking precum. _It will taste good._ The thought flashes across her mind from some dark corner of her mind, remember the scent of it in the shower so many hours before. _It will help._ And she leans forward with half a mind to try and lick him, but his torso is too damn long and she can only reach the middle of his stomach before his hands tighten on her hips and refuse to let her inch forward.

She kisses his stomach instead, sucking some of his sweaty skin between her teeth and nipping at it, knowing he’ll be marked, wanting him marked, wanting him to find moments of her in all sorts of places because she wants these moments to last longer than they do.

She kisses her way across his stomach and back, his skin flushing beautifully under her lips and with every kiss his tongue grows more insistent. It’s a subtle growth of intensity, a little more with each kiss but it’s not long before she’s bucking into his face and crying out and sobbing because somehow he’s found just the right intensity to drive her mad again without letting her come, to stoke her heat and drain it in equal measure until her arms are shaking and her lips are begging wordlessly. This was what the last hour on that flight had felt like except she _wants_ to come this time and can’t, rather than dreading how easily it could happen.

“Ben,” she pleads, or warns, or commands—she’s not sure, and the man has the _gall_ to pause completely and ask up at her innocently,

“You need something, sweetheart?”

 _Sweetheart._ If he’d called her kitten again, she would have growled, would have retorted but sweetheart is unexpected. No one’s ever called her something that endearing, not even in bed where most people are a little more sentimental than they are elsewhere.

“Rey?” He presses a light kiss to one of her ass cheeks and it’s that which knocks her back to reality.

“Just fucking fuck me already,” she growls at him and he chuckles and sets himself to the task, laving at her until she’s breathless, until she loses herself to the warmth of her own muscles as they relax completely.

He lets her go and she topples over sideways, lying inverse to him, her forehead pressed against his thigh. It’s so muscular. How is every part of him this muscular? Rey’s fit, but this? This is ridiculous.

She feels him sit up and shift to his knees. She feels his hands on her hips again, gently dragging her around on the bed until he’s lifting her head and resting it on a pillow. She feels him lift each of her legs and rest them on his shoulders, feels the tip of his cock at her opening, feels him pushing into her and she moans because she’d thought she was spent, thought she was done, she’s come six times since she woke up that morning but here’s his cock again and her arms are wrapping around his neck, pulling him closer to her as he starts to drive into her.

And oh that feels divine. The way he’s filling her now, she’d forgotten she needed to be _filled_ —it’s not just the coming, it’s the way her body stretches to accommodate him, knowing that soon he’ll be filling her with his seed, feeling the immediate cooling effect that streams of his precum has inside her. It didn’t feel like this when it had been four fingers in the airplane lavatory, it didn’t feel like this when his tongue was in her and the scent of him was driving her wild. His cock in her—there’s nothing in the world like it, nothing will ever be like it. Nothing she’s ever felt can compare—no other alpha, no toy, no dreams, _nothing._ It’s just Ben that can feel this way, can make her feel like his body was made for her, made for this.

“Rey,” he groans as his hips snap against hers, their skin slapping together obscenely, and yet nothing has ever sounded sweeter than his voice saying her name over it.

“Ben,” she moans back up at him. “Ben, please. Please knot me. Ben. Ben.”

She can tell he’s close from the way his motion is growing more and more erratic, from the way his head keeps falling forward and his hair is brushing against the skin of her chest. Rey’s fingers slip away from his neck, along the back of his skull to that sweet spot behind his ears and she whispers, “Come for me, Ben.”

And he does, his cock swelling to lock inside her as he goes perfectly still and his heat begins to flood her.

He stays very still for a moment, and she slides her legs off his shoulders, pulling him down to press his chest against hers. His heart is pounding, and he buries his face in her hair as Rey holds him tightly, and feels a sensation of perfect peace wash over her.

When his heart rate has slowed, he turns them so that they’re on their sides, pulling her leg so that it’s resting over his hip. He kisses the top of her head before sitting up, twisting and reaching for the bedside table. For a moment she thinks he’s going for his phone, to check on the event they are both missing, but when he turns back to her, he’s handing her a glass of water before turning back to grab another one for himself.

Rey hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until the water touches her lips. She drinks the whole thing in one go, and turns to put the glass on the other bedside table. She feels him bend, his lips sucking at one of her nipples, and Rey sighs and rolls her hips against his, trying to pull his knot deeper into her. She runs her hands through his hair again and pulls herself back to cuddle against his chest, breathing in the scent of him that’s dripping in the sweat sheen of his chest.

No one has ever smelled as good as him. No one. No one has ever felt as good inside her, even if she still thinks it’s weird to feel his cum shooting its way through her cervix like that.

“Thanks,” she mumbles into his skin.

He presses a kiss into her hair as a response and she nuzzles against him.

And to her complete and utter horror, she starts to cry.

“Rey?” He sounds thoroughly blindsided by it, and she’s shuddering and shaking and all she can really think to do is twist her head down towards the blankets and squeeze her eyes shut as she waits for it to pass.

His arms tighten around her and his lips are back in her hair again, nuzzling at the spot behind her ear, trying to calm her.

“I,” Rey gulps. “Sorry. It’s just been a long day and it’s barely past noon.”

That’s the only explanation she can think of for it. That she’s overstimulated, that she’s exhausted, that the only thing she had been able to think about since she’d gotten on the airplane was her Heat and that she’d forgotten to even drink water until Ben had given her some. He’d had two glasses prepared for them because it’s common knowledge for Heats: keep yourself hydrated, keep yourself fed or else you’ll end up making yourself sick.

“Breathe,” he whispers into her hair. “Breathe. It’s over. And I won’t let it happen again, I promise kitten.”

Kitten again. She likes it as a pet name. Alphas can get weird about pet names. She’s been called hellcat before, or wildcat. But kitten…she feels like a kitten now, wholly unable to process the world around her. It’ll go away soon she knows, and she’ll be a lioness again soon.

But there’s something oddly comforting about him taking care of her right now, nurturing her in a way she would never have expected from Ben Solo. She’s never felt as though any of the alphas she’s been with have been protective of her like this. Or maybe she never let them. Maybe they thought they couldn’t.

She hadn’t known she’d wanted it until this moment—someone holding her while she cries until the tears are gone and she knows—really this time—that she’s spent.

“Fucking Felicium,” she mutters into his chest.

“Hm?”

“My suppressant,” she says. “I did some research in the air. Altitude kills the refractory suppressant _and_ it doesn’t do anything for cat alphas which is why you can scent me to begin with, which makes _me_ scent _you_ and ugh.”

He squeezes her tighter again. “I wonder if altitude is something that affects refractory periods generally or if that’s the drug.” He sounds like he’s chewing his way through a theoretical problem, rather than something that had made her miserable for seven hours.

“Maybe that’s why cougars are cougars. Mountain lions. High altitude.”

He snorts. “And here I thought you were a cougar from the way you wanted to top,” he teases.

“Close. Regular lion. You?”

“Panther,” he replies and she reaches up and runs her hands through his dark hair again. His eyes flutter shut for a moment as he starts to purr.

Then he lets out a very strange noise—a little bit strangled, a little bit impatient and he buries his face in her hair again. “I love the way you smell,” he mumbles into her hair.

She rubs her nose against his skin. “I love the way you smell too.”

* * *

Rey is vaguely aware of him extracting himself from her arms. She hears the shower running, but can’t bring herself to move. She hears him moving around the hotel room and he presses a kiss to her forehead. “I’m going to meet them for the second event. Stay here and rest. There’s more water on the bedside table.”

She’s too sunken into the bed to protest and is asleep before she hears him leave.

* * *

 

When she does wake, it’s to several text messages from Rose.

_You ok? Ben just got here but you’re nowhere to be found and I don’t want to bring up that I know._

_Please don’t let him have mauled you to death._

_I don’t actually think he did. He’s actually smiling._

_Who knew that all it took to get Ben Solo to smile was for you to fuck the shit out of him._

_I’m assuming you’re asleep and that’s why you’re not replying_

Groggily, Rey types,

_Yeah, I needed to rest after that._

_The fucking or the flight?_

_Pick one._

_Where is the team now? I can try to intersect._

_Nah. We just finished the second stump and are heading to the hotel before the fundraiser tonight so I’ll meet you there. We’re roomies, but I’m assuming you won’t have checked in and that I’ll probably have the room to myself._

_Good assumption._

_Will you help me with my hair again for the fundraiser?_

_Obviously._

_Also—Finn got promoted. That’s what he and Poe were talking about at the airport._

_!!!!!!!_

Rey changes text windows to text Finn.

_You got promoted?!?!??!_

_Yeah!! Deep outreach lol. Trying to change the minds of the unchangeables._

_How are you feeling?_

_Better._

Rey stares at her phone. She doesn’t like lying to Finn. In fact, she hates it more than anything. She can tell him and keep Ben out of it.

_My suppressants were acting up on the plane, so it’s good to be back at sea level._

_Oh shit. I’m sorry :-(_

_Thanks <3_

_Anything I can do to help apart from just getting out of the way when I need to?_

_Nothing I can think of—but thanks for asking._

Her phone buzzes with a text from Ben.

_We’re headed back to the hotel, but I’ll likely be in meetings up through the fundraiser. Do you think you’ll need me at all?_

_Theoretically that knot should last eight hours now that I’m back at sea level, so I think I’ll be good. I probably have tons to catch up on as is._

_Let me know if it takes longer to get you acclimated to the altitude than we hope._

She likes the way he says we. She likes that they feel like a team.

Rey tosses her phone onto the bed and goes to shower.

* * *

They war room in Finn’s room, computers out, typing away furiously. Rey is tracking updated polling numbers from the various news networks, and pops them into a spreadsheet to track how the same networks had predicted the previous races and if there’s a way to predict what might happen on Super Tuesday if there’s any sort of trend in the polling predictions.

“It’s tight,” she mutters, but that’s not telling them anything they didn’t already know. “It’s really tight.”

“Yeah,” Finn says.

They don’t need to say anymore. Three polls have them up by three, two have them down by one and another three have them completely tied. Wash rinse repeat over sixteen states.

“Solo says the worst case scenario is that we don’t win on Super Tuesday and have to keep campaigning over the next few months. He’s making it sound like a chance of victory is worse than just not winning.” Snap rolls his eyes. “But he’s an arrogant prick, so there we are. And it’s not like he’s not the reason we’re in this position to begin with.”

Finn laughs uncharitably. “Yeah? Because the feminist left didn’t take one look at him and freak out that he used to work for Snoke? Because if ours is supposed to be a party for the future, our candidate’s son—”

“Doesn’t speak for our candidate,” Rey interrupts fiercely. “It’s not his fault that’s how people are interpreting his—”

“Why are you defending Ben Solo?” Finn cuts her off and Rey inhales sharply. It’s almost like a cold shower, how fast the memories of what Ben has _done_ wash over the memories of his lips and arms and heart. He had helped Snoke cause so much damage. No. Helped was the wrong word. He’d made life hell for millions of people.  He'd drafted the legislation.

“I’m not,” she replies but the words feel wrong. He’d held her while she cried. “I’m saying that _his_ politics aren’t the ones that represent the General’s thirty years on record. People acting as though he’ll sway her to his agenda, rather than looking at the fact that _she swayed him,_ is _not_ his fault.”

“I’d think,” Rose says quietly, and both of them turn to her. She’s looking at Finn, “That he’d be a good focal point for your outreach, actually. He used to work in Snoke’s administration, he was high up. And now where is he? And of his own choice? And doesn’t that show something about Snoke?”

“I like that angle,” comes Poe’s voice and they whirl around. Poe looks over-caffeinated, but then again he always does. He sleeps less than the General does, and five days from Super Tuesday, Rey doesn’t doubt that his hours spent resting will only decrease. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest and is leaning against the door to the bedroom. “It’s not painting him as someone who is a paragon of political virtue because no one voting in this primary is gonna believe that, but it does state the truth about Snoke. He drives away anyone with half a brain.”

“Glad to know you think I at least have half a brain,” comes Ben’s voice in passing and Rey sits up a little bit straighter. But he doesn’t come in the room and she hears footsteps receding and knows he’s off to another meeting.

“Only by accident,” Poe calls after him. He turns back to the group. “Rey—a word.”

She gets up and follows Poe out into the hall.

“Things are tight,” he tells her as if she didn’t know that too, “and we’re restructuring a little bit in light of that. I’m going to be working more tightly with Finn, which will take me out of some of the tasks I need to do for the General. I trust you. I want you to take some of those on.”

Rey blinks at him. Any other week, she’d be thrilled about this. Any other week, when her body is behaving itself and when she’s not fucking the General’s son to keep it under control.

“What tasks?” she asks.

“You ready for the big leagues?” he asks her.

* * *

 

The big leagues turn out to be joining the twice daily campaign senior staff meetings, which consists—at this time—of the General, Poe, Ben, Threepio, and Amilyn. And, apparently, now Rey.

Poe is having her take over volunteer communications.  They have thousands of volunteers of all ages who are cranking out calls for them in each state, and Poe can only manage so much. He probably should have given this task away weeks ago, but letting go was never his strong suit. Which is why it is now Rey’s.

“You’ve got a way with words,” he tells her as he leads her into the room where the meeting will take place.  “And you’re good at making sure that everyone does the right thing.  So helping disseminate our information out to each of our state volunteer programs—that’s you now.”

Any other time, it’s one thing to have him smile, clap her on the shoulder and continue down the hallway after a promotion; it’s another to have Rey standing in the room with the General, trying very hard to ground herself as she gives updates on volunteer numbers that Poe had only handed over to her twenty minutes before.

“And how many votes have we even secured, based on those calls?” the General asks her.

“It’s not a matter of how many votes we’ve secured,” Rey says, and is pleased by how confident she sounds.  God knows she doesn’t _feel_ confident.  “We don’t know how many of those are still considering Ney.  Sometimes people will say anything just to get someone to hang up on them and let them get back to their dinner. But the important thing is that they’re listening. They’re engaged, based on our post-surveys.”

“We’re not only calling undecideds, though.  We’re also calling the base.  Is that really the best use of our time right now?” Ben points out and Rey’s eyes snap to him.  He’s leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees and he’s not looking at her.  The comment cuts across point. That rankles. 

“And how many people will stay home because they’ll see we’re up or down in the polls? All of this is in flux,” she snaps.

He’s still not looking at her.  That, and she keeps telling him things he probably already knows because he’s worked on campaigns before—this isn’t the first senior staff meeting he’s sat through, unlike Rey.  She takes a shaky breath, trying not to think about Ben before this campaign, trying to focus on his scent instead.  The scent of the alpha who is seeing her through her Heat should be calming, should help her keep her nerves at bay. But he’s still not looking at her. Had she done something to displease him, the corner of her brain that is nothing but omega instinct wonders.  He had called them  _we_ in his text earlier, but maybe that hadn’t meant as much to him as it had to her.

She forces herself to keep going. “Our base is loyal and reaching out to them to show we’re still in touch continues to commit them and show our dedication in their eyes.”

But her words don’t bring his gaze back to her, and there’s nothing of the gentleness she’s seen in his face when he turns and locks eyes with Poe before turning to the General. Yes, he’s definitely avoiding looking at her, and it shakes her more than she wants it to. Shame crawls in her gut. “Our effort should be focused on the grassroots, the people who might actually be able to swing the tide either in our favor or against it.” His voice is hard and Rey knows he’s directing the comment more to Poe and to his mother than to her, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling as though she’d failed on a project she’d been given twenty minutes before.

“Perhaps, but I can’t think of a better way to do it,” sighs the General.  “People want to help, so let them help.  This is an easy way, and sometimes the phones do work. Although…” She turns to look at Amilyn, and before she even opens her mouth, Amilyn says, “On it,” and leaves the room.

The General lets out an amused huff. “When can you all get to that level of mind-reading? It’s much more efficient.”

“That it?” Poe asks.

“Yeah. Break. I need to shower before tonight. Ben—a word.”

Ben had already gotten to his feet and his whole back is to her now as he turns to his mother.

Rey leaves the room, feeling bewildered, feeling jilted.

_I know Ben Solo’s an asshole, but…_

_Leave the rest of it outside for a little while longer,_ he’d said to her while curled around her last night. This is what he’s like outside, away from her scent and her cunt and her need. Maybe he doesn’t want her to get the wrong idea. The reality of it is that Heats can fill your head and heart with delusions of a connection that’s not really there. Maybe that’s what it’s like for him when her hormones aren’t overpowering him. That _should_ be what it’s like for her. He is the General’s son, after all, and this can’t end well. It’s for the best, if he doesn’t want to look at her, even if he is helping her through her Heat.

So why is her throat closing? Why does she feel like crying?


	4. Chapter 4

Rose is quiet as she helps Rey with her hair and it looks like her mind is far away.

“Something wrong?” Rey asks quietly.

“You and Finn got promoted,” Rose says. “And I didn’t. And it’s so dumb. I am happy for both of you. I really am. But I’ve been part of the campaign for longer and I just wish…” she sighs. “Well, I don’t work closely with Poe. So that’s that.”

Rey turns around and reaches for Rose’s hand, but Rose backsteps. “I don’t want you smelling all over me if Ben’s rutting you. I want to keep out of his path.”

She looks so dejected that the comment only lightly nudges at that sense of shame that hasn’t gone away, and Rey’s heart breaks for her. She wants to give her a hug, but she suspects that’ll make Rose’s mood even worse. “He doesn’t own me,” she responds. _He may not even like me._ She hates that thought. She wants desperately to believe that it’s not true. But he hadn’t wanted to look at her. “You’re my friend.”

“It’s an alpha thing,” Rose mumbles, and Rey stands and does hug her.

“And this is a friend thing,” Rey tells her firmly. “You’re my friend and that matters to me more than being…being an omega. And besides, you were doing my hair. You’ve got my scent all over your hands already.” Maybe that’ll piss Ben off. She sort of hopes it does. Let _him_ feel conflicted, rather than letting herself feel small.

She straightens her shoulders. She refuses to feel small. It’s part of what makes her a shitty omega. And she had warned him about that. He doesn’t get to make her feel this way. She refuses to feel this way.

_Maybe they were shitty alphas._

_Maybe you’re not much better, making me feel like this._

Rey throws Ben from her mind as Rose wraps her arms around Rey and they stand there for a long moment. She feels her friend breathing shakily before she pulls away and wipes her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” Rose tells her. “I will be.”

Rey nods. “I didn’t really get promoted the way Finn did. It was just some additional work. I’m not getting a pay raise or anything.” Poe had been very clear about that—they couldn’t afford it until at least after Super Tuesday.

“Additional work that puts you right in front of the General,” Rose points out, not unkindly. “Which I suppose I wouldn’t even _want_. I’d end up putting my foot in my mouth.”

“It was terrifying,” Rey confides. “I can’t even remember what I said I had such tunnel vision.”

That makes Rose give her a smile.

They end up in the lobby a few minutes later, waiting with Finn and Kaydel for a cab to take them over to the fundraiser. She sees Ben standing in a corner on his phone, talking very seriously and she can tell he’s avoiding looking at her again.

 _What happened_? she wonders, trying to focus more on the annoyance of the situation and less on the crushing weight in her gut that this always happens—everyone always drops her when they realize she’s just…she’s just Rey.

“Will you be ok flying again tomorrow?” Finn asks, concern in his voice as Kaydel and Rose compare notes on the opposition primary. Not that either of them particularly expects anyone but Snoke to win, but voter turnouts are interesting either way.

“It’s a shorter flight,” she says. “So hopefully. I’m at least prepared now.”

She doesn’t know what’s gotten into Ben, but she can be sure of one thing at least: he will not want to repeat the plane experience of this morning and will knot her before they leave.

 _Why_ won’t he look at her? She’d felt so comfortable with him that day—it was hard to believe it had been less than a day since her Heat had begun, but Heats were nothing if not vivid—and now she feels frozen out. She hates that she can’t let it go, but maybe that’s because she can still feel his cum in her uterus, because her heart seems to be pumping the memory of his scent through her core.

The fundraiser is exactly the sort of thing that Rey could never have imagined when she was growing up. Everyone is wearing the fanciest dresses and suits, and there is lots of champagne and musical guests who are donating their time because they like Leia Organa’s platform. Rey is not the only one dressed as best she can be—wearing a gold spaghetti strap sheath dress that she’d gotten off the sales rack two days before when she and Rose had gone panic shopping together. Rose is wearing a red a-line, Finn is looking very dapper in a navy-blue velvet suit, while Kaydel is dressed in a yellow floral dress. There are photographers everywhere, and it isn’t long before Finn has appeared with several glasses of wine which he begins handing out.

“No thanks,” Rey says, giving him a smile. He raises an eyebrow. She glances at Kaydel, and realizes she doesn’t know if the blonde knows that Rey’s a demi. Rose’s words from the flight cross her mind again. _Anyone who can’t deal with it will likely get fired by the General personally._ “It interferes with my suppressants.”

Kaydel’s eyes go wide. “Girl, what do you use? Is it species specific? I just switched and my symptoms are wild.”

“Did the flight make you—”

“Oh my god I wanted to die the whole time. The _turbulence_.”

Rey almost bursts out laughing, and she throws her arm around Kaydel’s shoulder and they start talking hormones. Rey doesn’t intend it, but she can’t help but be a little pleased that it strands Finn and Rose to their own conversation as she learns that Kaydel is a vixen, that she’s been bouncing between new suppressants for the past few heat cycles and they keep being almost enough to be right, but that they’ve been rough on her mental health.

“Have you been handling your Heat ok?” Kaydel asks her. “I know the campaign is busy, but honestly taking an hour to fuck it out has been doing wonders for the pre-Super Tuesday stress.”

“I’ve been managing,” Rey says, thinking again of how Ben hasn’t looked at her since he’d left her in his bed that afternoon. She is glad that she seems more settled in her annoyance at him, rather than her hurt. It’s easier to be annoyed than hurt now that she’s happily chatting with Kaydel, and Rose and Finn are there with her. She feels less like an intimacy-repellant.  And she knows that Ben can be a bit of a standoffish prick, but he’d held her while she cried, he should know better than to do that and then turn his back on her. What kind of asshole does that anyway?

Briefly, she allows herself a moment of amusement about just how many emotional states she’s been in that day. Heats are wild.

Kaydel cocks her head appraisingly. “I thought I smelled a strong alpha on the flight earlier today. Was that for you?”

Rey rolls her eyes. “What gave it away?”

“The nine different emotions you just showed me while saying you’ve been managing. You need a better poker face.”

“Yeah, it was for me,” she responds. She glances over at Finn and Rose, who are now talking spiritedly about a movie that Rey has never heard of.

The General gives a short speech, more lighthearted than her usual stumps, and it’s about midway through that she smells Ben standing right behind her—far enough away to look just like he’s standing near her in the crowd, but close enough so that she knows that it’s him, because how can she not? She doesn’t think she’s ever experienced a scent as powerful as his. Somehow, she doubts she ever will again. Her heart lurches sadly, and she has to take it firmly in hand. She was determined to be angry, not sad. Anger is easier than sadness.

She does not turn around. She does not look at him. And though her traitor heart is bounding in her chest at the nearness of him, warmth flooding her as it would if she were touching him, when the General finishes speaking, she marches away from him without looking back. _See how he likes it_ , she thinks savagely.

She gets herself a ginger ale and leans against the bar, drinking it lightly, knowing he’s watching her now as she leans slightly so there is a curve in her spine that accentuates her narrow hips.

“Rey.”

She almost jumps out of her skin because that’s the General right there, standing there looking up at her. Leia Organa is not a tall woman, but she carries herself such that Rey always forgets that until they are standing right next to each other. “Poe said that you were feeling sick on the plane. I hope you’re feeling a little better now?”

Rey feels a flush creep up her skin that will only mean danger because she has no idea how long it will be before Ben’s cum inside her stops playing nicely with her suppressants. It should have already done that. And now of course she’s thinking about how his hair had felt against her chest as he’d rutted into her while looking at his mother. “Better, yes,” she manages. “Thank you.”

The General pats her on the arm. “I’m glad to hear it. But if you’re soldiering through something, take the time and heal fully. No matter what Poe says, we need our people in top shape.”

“Yes ma’am.”

 _That was a serious yes ma’am,_ he’d texted her when she’d been hot and flustered in the lavatory earlier that day. Ugh she was going to have to pay attention to him, wasn’t she? She could already feel her nipples beginning to harden—which was a while new level of embarrassing given that she’s not wearing a bra right now and is talking to the General.

She does her best to subtly cross her arms over her chest.

The General grabs a glass of wine from the bar and gives Rey an unfathomable look. “You did well today in the staff meeting. Take deep breaths. You’re doing good work.” And without another word she pats Rey on the shoulder and walks away.

Rey looks out across the room again and finds that Ben is walking right towards her, his face a riot of emotions, but the one she thinks she identifies first is nervousness.

“What was that about?” he asks her and she doesn’t know if he does it on purpose, but his hand comes to rest on the small of her back, just above her tailbone. She stiffens and his hand is gone.

“She was just saying hi, I think,” Rey says. “Checking after…” she groans. “After my health since she heard I was sick. I told you she’s worked it out about me.” Because there was no way it was _Poe Dameron_ who had told the General that Rey had been going through hell on that flight when General could damn well smell her herself.

Ben doesn’t even pretend that he thinks that his mother might be ignorant of the situation. Everyone knows how sharp Leia Organa is; everyone knows how tactful she is too. He grimaces and looks around. “Let’s get out of here. Or do you want to keep pretending I’m not here.” He means it to sound sarcastic, or cutting but when she looks up at him she sees a combination of hurt and guilt there.

“Let’s go,” she says and makes her way to the exit of the party room.

It’s much quieter outside and she has to take two steps for every one of Ben’s which she knows will only accelerate her Heat because her heart rate is increasing. But she doesn’t care. They stand out front, waiting for a cab and she grabs his arm. He looks at her and she takes a deep breath. “Why wouldn’t you look at me?”

“What?”

“Earlier. In the meeting. Before the fundraiser. Why wouldn’t you look at me?”

“That’s what you’re angry about?” he asks as though he can’t believe it.

Rey crosses her arms over her chest. “I’ve spent more than enough of my life being treated like I don’t matter, thank you very much.” Her jaw is jutting out defensively, and she wishes she didn’t feel like crying again, but it’s harder to be angry now that he’s here, watching her with those deep black eyes of his. _I don’t need that from you_ , she almost adds but that feels like too much. They’re just fucking. So what if somehow she feels supported by him, protected by him. She just needs him to treat her better than other alphas she’s been with and this—this isn’t doing that.

Ben’s watching her with bright eyes, as though he can’t look away from her.

“You do matter,” he tells her with the sort of quiet intensity that makes her stomach curl. He looks around. The cab has pulled up and he opens the door for her. She slides in and he gets in after her, opening the window for a night breeze.

Then he glances her way, then at the driver, and takes out his phone and begins to type.

Her phone buzzes and she pulls it from her purse.

_You do matter. More than I know what to do with._

_I’m sorry I didn’t look at you. I couldn’t. It was gonna be like the plane all over again if I did. I have never felt this way before where my body is so close to being in Rut just from thinking about you and that’s with my suppressants._

_I don’t know how to be calm around you, and yet I’m only calm around you._

She stares at him, her throat dry, and he stares back and she knows he means it. He glances at the cab driver before turning back to his phone.

_I would have said that all aloud, but you never know who’s gonna be a bigot._

_I know._

The scent of him is filling her nose. She’s sure the same is true for him and opens up the window on her side of the car to get a cross breeze. She wonders if it will be enough.

She edges her hand towards his on the seat of the car. He takes hers and she squeezes it.

* * *

 

Ben’s hand trails up her spine as they wait for the elevator in the hotel and she feels his thumb pressing the thin golden fabric of her dress against her spine where the clasp of her bra would be if she were wearing a bra. Her nipples are so stiff through the front of her dress that she knows he has to know that she’s not wearing a bra at all, but he still seems determined, every time his hand passes that point in her spine, to feel for a clasp.

They get in the elevator and are, mercifully, the only two people in there. Rey turns to face him as the elevator doors lock his scent in and the elevator begins its slow progression to the third floor. She’s bone tired right now, and they have to be up early tomorrow morning for a flight back to the middle of the country—shorter than the one today thank god. Hopefully, tomorrow is a more stable day. There haven’t been highs and lows like this…well not recently.

Part of her just wants to sleep in Ben’s arms, to kick off her shoes and tumble into bed half-dressed and snuggle—how had he turned her into a snuggler? How?—until she falls asleep; another part of her knows that won’t be even a little bit possible because her nipples are too stiff and her sex has already saturated her underpants and is starting to drip slick down her thighs.

They don’t turn on the lights when they get to his room, just as they hadn’t bothered the night before. Had it really only been one night? It feels like a lifetime. She feels like she’s known Ben down in her soul for years—or maybe that he’s known her. And that’s why she feels safe around him. Omegas are always talking, with a wink and a nod, about how their alphas take care of them. But Rey feels taken care of in a way she hasn’t since she was six when Ben holds her.

Which is why she steps into his arms, stands on the tips of her toes, and kisses him, very lightly, on the lips.

Rey is aware of several things at once.

The first is the sweetest—that this is their first kiss. They’ve fucked hard and well in the past day, so hard and well that—barring the fiasco on the airplane, which was as much a fluke caused by her medication as anything else—that Rey’s felt almost normal during this Heat, despite the fact that her suppressants haven’t worked on him. It’s not abnormal for alphas and omegas who aren’t in a relationship with one another not to kiss. Their relationship for that period of time is about fucking, not about love or its preludes. So she hadn’t thought about the lack of kiss until her lips connected to his.

The second is more sensual—that she never wants to stop kissing him, that the feeling of his lips, big and plump and soft as they are, against hers and the way he’s kissing her back, holding her close, his heart hammering in his chest against hers—she feels in his lips what she thinks she sees in his eyes, what he’d texted her about in the cab when he hadn’t wanted anyone but her to know. _I don’t know how to be calm around you, and yet I’m only calm around you._ She understands that from the way he’s kissing her.

The last is that her cunt gushes and she literally feels her labia swelling the moment he deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding between her lips. She is sure he can smell it. _She_ can smell it. She can smell everything—the stale odor of the panties she’d worn on the plane which are on the ground not too far from where they’re standing, the sweat of the shirt he’d worn for most of the day, tangy and Ben, the way his own pheromones are blooming now in her nose as he scents her arousal while his tongue traces her lips.

His hands find the zipper of her dress and he tugs it down and a moment later she drops her arms so that he can push the straps from her shoulder. She wraps her arms back around his neck, holding his face to hers as he fumbles with his tie, with the buttons on the black shirt he’s wearing, with his belt-buckle. He toes off his shoes and breaks the kiss long enough to shove his pants down his legs and divest himself of the remainder of his clothes.

Then he picks her up, and Rey’s legs wrap around his hips and she slips her tongue into his mouth as she reaches down between them to find his cock and guide it towards her. She doesn’t need or want anything mind-blowingly spectacular. She just wants him. Him’s enough for now.

And he gives himself to her.

He gives himself to her in the way that his lips seem unwilling to leave hers now that they’ve finally connected. He gives himself to her in how tightly he holds her so that she can feel the soft heat of his skin against hers, grounding her as she loses herself in the taste of his tongue for the first time. He gives himself to her when he pulls her on top of him and lets her guide her slick cunt onto him so that they are—in as many ways possible—connected.

It is achingly slow, the way she moves now—achingly, blissfully slow as she lets herself savor every sensation because she knows in her head and not just in her heated body that this—this she wants to remember. She wants to remember that when his tongue rubs against hers, it sends tingles down her spine. Because it does. No kiss has ever done that before, and yet with Ben, she feels her the nerves in her body light up. It feels as though her heart is beating—not faster, but stronger somehow, deeper, as though it is sending more blood through her to keep her alive, to keep her senses sharp—all the better to feel him with.

And she can feel him. Every ridge of his stomach muscles skimming lightly under her own, every drop of shared sweat, the way—even as she moves slowly over him—she can feel the way he’s twitching inside her. She runs her hands through his hair—how she loves it, how soft it is, how it smells like him, and he begins to purr contentedly into her lips. And Rey purrs back, because she is nothing if not perfectly content, nothing if not thrilled with the soft vibrations of his purrs against her lips.

His hand finds that spot on her lower back again and she bucks her hips back towards him, and she feels him grunt with the sudden movement of her against his dick.

“Cheater,” she mutters into his lips and he chuckles.

“And what am I cheating at, sweetheart?”

And quick as a cat, he has her on her back, his long torso curled away from her as he kisses her and rocks his hips into hers as well and she sighs as she pulls her legs up to warp around his hips, to cant her hips just so that he can push into her that much deeper. She sighs into his lips and at some point, the sighs turn to gasps, and soon her chest is heaving and all she can do is hold him.

* * *

He’s playing with her hair while she snuggles into him, her leg thrown over his waist and his knot pulsing inside her. They are both of them purring, and Rey can’t take her eyes off his. They’re so soft in the dark, looking down at her like this. No one’s ever looked at her like this before.

“Is this real?” she asks him because she has to.

“I hope so,” he responds and he bends his head down to press a kiss to her forehead.

And then, because she can’t get over it, she asks, “How has it only been a day?”

He snorts. “Well, the planet revolves around—” She pinches him and he grabs her wrist, lifting it to his lips and pressing a kiss to her. “I don’t know,” he answers more seriously. “It feels like a lot longer than that, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she replies, swallowing. Were he anyone else, she wouldn’t dare say the thought that crosses her mind now. _Maybe they were_ shitty alphas _._ “I—I know I sort of…I’m a bad omega. And you’ve been really—good with that. Thank you. I know that might not work for—”

“It’s fine,” he shrugs. “It’s intriguing.” He looks like he’s searching for more words, but Rey cuts him off.

“If you want to be more alpha, I don’t mind.” He frowns, his eyes darting between each of hers, and she adds, ducking her head, shy for some reason, “I trust you with it. Trust you not to—not to be an asshole with it.”

His arms tighten around her and his lips brush against her hair.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he begins slowly, “These shitty alphas you’ve been with—did they—”

“No,” Rey says automatically. “No, they didn’t. But you’re the first one who’s treated me like a person and not some thing to fuck. I don’t like being made to feel like a thing.”

She didn’t like thinking about her past Heats, especially not with Ben so warm and calming right next to her.

“You’re not a thing,” he whispers into her hair, holding her close. “You’re Rey.”

She is.

She is Rey Johnson, and Ben Solo is holding her and her body is relaxed. “Anyway,” she says, trying to draw her own thoughts back quite as much as his. “I know I’m a shitty omega, but I might be able to—”

“You keep saying that.” He rolls his eyes. “It’s not true. Just keep being you. I’ve enjoyed every second I’ve spent with you. It’s not what I’ve experienced before perhaps, but it’s you—and I care about you more than instinct.”

“More than instinct?” she asks, trying to wrap her head around that. Aren’t they here because of instinct? Because of Heat and Rut and cat pheromones?

“So maybe I want to bend you over a table,” he says, “But if you don’t like that—I’d far rather have you than that. Especially—” He juts his jaw slightly, “Especially because you make me feel safe. Cared for. I don’t know, it’s dumb. I never really got why omegas instinct was the way it was until I met you and you topped me. And suddenly it all clicked into place. So maybe we balance each other out.”

Rey chews on that for a moment before murmuring under her breath, “I’d like you to bend me over a table.”

“Tomorrow, kitten. We’ll find one, I promise.”

She smiles up at him before nudging her lips closer to his. The most annoying thing about him being knotted inside her is that his torso—his beautiful lithe torso—is so damn long that it’s hard to reach his lips—and now that she has reached his lips, she wants to be able to reach them always. Ben bends his head obligingly, though, and his tongue sweeps into Rey’s mouth and she sighs at the taste of him.

“Is it always this good? With another cat?” she asks him.

“Thinking about replacing me?” He sounds like he’s trying to sound amused but there’s a slight sting.

“No, I’m just curious,” she replies. “What was it like for you the last time.”

He jerks his shoulder in a shrug. “It wasn’t like this,” he shrugs. “It was more impersonal. She was…” his voice trails away. “We didn’t cuddle. I don’t know how it’s possible to be knotted and not cuddle, but she managed. And I guess that’s cats for you—I found the only cat more solitary than me.”

“Not all cats are solitary,” Rey hears herself saying, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek. “Lions aren’t. And housecats do like company, and,” His lips cut her off and she lets it go.

When he pulls away from her, he continues. “The sex was fine,” he shrugs. “I don’t think it was much different than it would have been with a non-cat omega, apart from the knotting. And she knew about cat tells, and such.”

“Cat tells?”

His hand drops to her tailbone and his fingers brush over it and she tries to arch towards his hand but his knot inside her won’t let her move and she winces because that hurts. His hand disappears and he kisses her hair again.

“Nothing’s ever been like this before,” he tells her seriously. “And I don’t think that’s because you’re a cat. I think it’s because you’re you. Like—fuck. My mom raised me right when it comes to some of my instincts and I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem pushing those thoughts aside because Heat and Rut are one thing, but that doesn’t mean we’re actually animals—but god if I don’t feel some of that instinct—”

“Like what?” Rey asks, knowing what he’s going to say before he says it.

“Like hoping as I’m coming inside you that your birth control will fail,” he says seriously. “And then I knock that thought aside. But fuck, the idea of you pregnant and I feel myself get hard again. That’s what you smell like. Sex and kids and love and everything I could possibly want from a future with you and that’s not like anything I’ve experienced before.”

His words should freak her out, but they don’t for some reason. Briefly, she catches an image of herself, pregnant and glowing while he curls around her and their child and it’s as if her head finally understands why her body goes into Heat, because that future, where she’s not alone, where she has a _family_ …

“Well, I don’t think it’ll fail,” she says quietly and he brushes her hair out of her face again. He likes her hair, she thinks—possibly as much as she likes his. She tries not to imagine a child with his hair and her eyes and life that _could_ catch in her womb if she forgot a pill.

“I don’t either,” he replies. “My point was less that I wanted it and more that the idea of a future with you—that felt possible. And I wanted _that_. I want—want that. And I don’t think that’s your Heat. I think that’s you.”

“It’s been a day, how can you know?”

“You’re the one who asked if this was real, Rey. I’m just agreeing with you.” His expression is so serious. “I’ve never cared about anyone in my life the way I care about you. If it’s been a day, fine. It’s been a day. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after.”

It sounded like something out of the romance novels she’d read in the library when she’d been a kid. It sounded like something from someone else’s story—not one where everyone keeps leaving her, not her own. It sounded like something she never could have dreamed of—not from anyone and certainly not an alpha.

But she believes it from Ben.

And she loves him for it.

It’s only when he reaches a hand up to brush a tear from her cheek that she realizes she’s crying.

“Am I overwhelming you?” he asks her quietly.

“A bit,” she says. “In a good way. I—” she takes a deep breath. Time to open the box again for just a moment. Time to remember what she chooses to forget. “My parents abandoned me when I was six. I’m not used to feeling wanted. Or letting myself be wanted. So it’s a lot and—”

His lips crash against hers again, and his arms wrap around her and hold her so very tightly. She can barely breathe and what she can breathe is Ben, and she’s fine with that, because how intoxicating it is—to be wanted like this, to have someone want to give her a place in their future.

“Do you know what happened to them?” he asks her when their lips have parted again.

She shakes her head. “Johnson is the most common name in the country.” He runs his fingers through his own hair, agitated, angry on her behalf. “I—I sometimes still hope they’ll come back for me.” He looks at her incredulously.

“They abandoned you and you still want them?”

“What if it was all some mistake?”

“I may have a lot of shit to work out with my parents, but I am pretty sure abandoning your child is never an accident. My mom working seventy hour weeks all through my childhood and sending me off to boarding school—that was a mistake. That’s not what happened to you.”

It’s the first time he’s ever referred to the General in a less than professional context. Even when he’d mentioned not wanting to be in Rut near her, there’d been a tinge to it that implied that he didn’t want to be in Rut during their meetings. Rey had assumed that he was just trying to keep it professional. This is the first window she’s had into what their relationship might be like. _He worked for Snoke._ Strange that she has to keep reminding herself of that. Strange that it doesn’t seem to fit who he is now. Had it fit him once? She finds that nearly impossible to imagine.

“Was that hard?” she asks, wanting him to talk about it more and his eyes snap to hers, his nostrils flaring.

“I had parents who loved me,” he says and it’s almost as though he’s trying to convince himself of it. “They were good, upstanding people. So any problems—that had to be me. Mom was busy, serving the country, making the world a better place, so I was the selfish one wishing she’d actually read to me at night sometimes or listen to me when I had nightmares that kept me from sleeping. And my dad—” He cuts himself off, and Rey reaches for his hand. She knows what everyone else knows: that Ben had been driving the car when his father had died. He seems to deflate. “I don’t want to talk about my dad,” he mumbles at last.

She feels his knot begin to shrink and she pulls herself closer to him. She wonders what it would have been like—for her parents to have kept her and to not have cared. _Ben’s parents did care, though._ Caring and having enough time are different things, aren’t they? But would he have known that as a child? Would he know that now? Rey is good at waiting, good at caring, but she knows that the two aren’t the same.

 _If we ever have kids, we’re both making time. I’ll make sure of that_ , she thinks heatedly, before shoving that thought away. They’ve been together for a day. Kids is something to think about no sooner than a year in.

“Apart from your mother,” Rey says slowly, deciding to change the subject. “Rose Tico knows about us.”

“Yeah—I figured as much after you texted me this morning,” Ben says. He sounds relieved to have his mind off his father. “I haven’t told anyone. You seemed not to want people to know.”

“I haven’t either. Kaydel might be sniffing it out, but I don’t think she knows. And Finn can be…” she thinks of Finn, thinks of how hard Rose is working to try and get him to notice her. “Finn can be oblivious sometimes.”

“And Dameron wouldn’t notice if he walked in on us fucking while looking for polling numbers,” snorts Ben. “I think—I think we’ll be ok. I don’t think we need to keep it a secret—”

“That’s because men never get accused of sleeping their way to the top. And you’re about as top as it gets.”

“Anyone who says that about you can say that to my fucking face,” he growls. “Or to my mother’s.”

“It’s just not worth it,” Rey says. “Besides…I like having it be secret,” she says. His knot is gone by now and she could easily pull herself off him. Instead she wiggles her hips closer to his, and watches as his face softens. “I like having this just be the two of us.” Only then does she pull herself off his dick, the cum that didn’t make it through her cervix slicking itself over her thighs. She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him until they fall asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

“Rey?”

Rey groans.  His lips brush over her ears. 

“Sweetheart, I need to knot you before we fly.  Is that ok?”

Flying.  Right.  Feeling as though she would fall apart if she didn’t come in the air for hours.  She rolls over and opens her eyes and they fall on the clock on the bedstand, blasting out dull red numbers telling her it’s far too early.  _It’s three hours behind the east,_ she reminds herself.  But even before her Heat had come on, she’d been exhausted.  She groans again.

“Rey?”

“I’m not awake.”

“I know,” he sounds distressed.  That’s a little sweet, she thinks.  “I know you’re not.  And I know it’s a shorter flight but the timing’s the exact same as yesterday.  I can take care of it—you can just relax.”

Rey turns her head towards him.  She can’t smell him over the scent of stale sex, of whatever the blankets had absorbed of them since they’d arrived the day before.  _Which means neither of us are hot._

_But I will be in a few hours, once his knot wears off._

“Yeah,” she says. “Give me a minute.  I need to…”  To what?  It’s too damn early, she’s too tired.  She’s just slept very deeply but it’s not enough and Ben wants to knot her—and she knows she needs him to knot her. 

Her eyes flutter shut again and he kisses her neck, slowly, wetly, his tongue nudging against her skin. Then he starts to kiss his way down her side, stopping at a nipple to suck at it gently.  It feels nice.  It feels nice but she’s not hot.  She’s not even awake.  He’s taking the blankets with him as he goes lower and lower and Rey lets out a frustrated sound.  “It’s _cold_.”

“I’ll warm you up.”

“Ben.”

He stops kissing her, his chin on her stomach and she opens her eyes. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks carefully.  She knows he will.  She knows he doesn’t want to, but he will.  And he won’t be angry.  _Maybe they were shitty alphas_.

“No I just…” but she doesn’t know.  “Go on.”

“Are you—”

“Go on.  I’m cold.”

And his lips settle between her legs and start to lick.  She shifts her hips, spreading her legs a little wider to give him better access. His hands come to rest on the insides of her thighs and his skin is warm against hers.  She feels her nipples pebbling more from cold than from arousal—the air conditioning in the room is too damn strong.  She hadn’t noticed the night before, but she sure as hell notices it now.  She’s not awake, she’s cold, and she also knows that she’ll be even more miserable if they don’t do this.

It’s weird, foreplay during Heat.  She’d never thought she’d need that.  Maybe Felicium does work kind of sort of.  How drastically that and having been knotted changes her experience with her Heat. So there they are, Ben’s tongue on her slit, doing what work he can to get her wet enough for him.  She wonders if he’s hard, or even close to it. Somehow she doubts it.

She reaches her hands down to run her fingers through his hair.  He makes a noise into her cunt and looks up at her for a moment and there—that’s him.  That’s how he smells.  Fresher now, not stale, wafting off his face.  Her lips twitch into a smile.  That’s what this is supposed to smell like, like Ben wanting her, Ben treating her like a person and not a thing.  That’s why they’re doing this _now_ , even though she’s half asleep and neither of them are aroused just yet. Because he doesn’t want her to be falling apart again.

Her heart swells, and that’s enough.  His tongue flicks across her clit and she lets out a moan, and he does it again, and again.  He slides a finger inside her, testing how wet she is.  She clenches around him.  One of his fingers is bigger than one of hers, but it’s not enough, and now that she’s started, she can feel the Heat rising right through her.  His scent was all it took.  She’ll need to remember that for future flights.  Or when her Heat has faded and she wants to get going quicker.  Somehow she knows the scent of him will do that to her. 

A second finger joins the first, and then a third, and then he sucks her clit—hard between his lips. He slips her shoulders over his legs and then kisses his way up her stomach again until he’s propped on his elbows over her.  Then he guides his cock into her and Rey lets out a sigh and rocks her hips into him. He kisses her ankles, bends to kiss her lips, and then he bucks into her.  If he’d been gently trying to wake her up with his tongue, he’s not even bothering with that now—moving so quickly he takes Rey’s breath away.  She’s gasping and the angle he’s driving into her is sending shock waves through her that definitely have her fully awake. With her legs hooked over his shoulders like this she can only do so much to match his pace, to meet her hips with his, so she clutches at his back, digs her fingers into his skin.

“Let go,” he whispers. “I’ve got you.  Let go.”

And she knows he does—so she lets go, she closes her eyes, she pays attention to how shallow her breathing is, how full of him she is, how she can trust him, how she does trust him, how she’s never trusted any other alpha before, but she trusts Ben and she understands exactly what he’d meant the night before where he’d felt primal because all she wants in that moment is for him to come so hard he knots and fills her with seed and her womb will relax in the hopes that she’ll get pregnant with his child and that—that’s the thought that sends her spinning into her orgasm and she can’t even care how weird it feels because she knows it’s just hormones and Heat, and that that’s what her Heat is supposed to do—make her want kids—but that’s never happened before and wouldn’t have happened if it had been anyone but—

“Ben,” she moans, as she clenches around him, as her fingers grasp at the sheets as her back curls into the bed from the way her stomach muscles are clenching.  “Ben.”

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here.”

And with three more thrusts, he knots, slipping her feet off his shoulders and letting himself fall forward onto her for just a moment.  She wraps her arms around him and holds him there.  She loves the crushing weight of him on top of her, she loves feeling him pressed into her, taking up every part of her awareness, even if only for a moment.

He rolls off her and pulls them into the same snuggling position they’ve ended up in the last two times they’ve knotted, and Rey lets contented warmth wash over her as she drifts back off to sleep.

-

“I felt it too,” she tells him when they’re showering the scent of one another off themselves before heading to the airport.  “That primal thing you were talking about last night.” 

His expression is so soft when he bends to kiss her, and Rey is glad she told him.  Her stomach had been in knots, but she couldn’t not tell him. Somehow she feels as though secrets don’t have a place between her and Ben—at least one-sided ones.  Shared secrets—she likes those. 

“I know this is happening fast,” he whispers into her lips.  “I know.  I know—but I’m glad of that.  It’s clearer, somehow.  Because it’s fast.  Like I don’t have to wonder whether I want you.  I just know that I do.”

“I want you too,” Rey replies firmly.  “I’m…I’m nervous about what it will be like after my Heat’s over.”

“It’s not your Heat that makes me want you.”  He looks almost stung at the implication. 

“That’s not what I meant. It was more…”  She doesn’t know how to explain it.  She doesn’t know if she can.  “I feel like right now we can fuck our way through most everything. But there’s more to being together than just fucking.  And I don’t know what that is.  And I won’t until I’m out of Heat.  Or until the election is over.”

“And if we win, not until long after the election is over,” he replies darkly. 

“What does that mean?”

“My mom always talked about _after the elections_ and they never came.  It was more of the same busy all the time—just a different shade of it.”  _And you were neglected._   But he’s here now, working for his mother.  That’s a good sign.  That time made it better between them.  And Rey and Ben…well they weren’t really anything yet.  Not yet, but she knew, burning down in her gut that they would be and then—

Fear fills her.  Fear, not just that in the excitement around winning, of new jobs and hard work, that time wouldn’t be her own and she might not have time for Ben—but that Ben wouldn’t have time for her.

But before she can even let that thought settle in her mind, he’s grabbing a towel and getting out of the shower, and Rey knows they’ve spent too much time under the water.  She shakes herself, determined not to worry about this right now, not when she’s feeling so euphoric, and follows him out of the shower.  She brushes her teeth, takes her Felicium, and goes out to find her suitcase.  Ben’s already collected the clothes she’d worn from the day before and placed them next to it and he’s getting dressed now a dark grey shirt and dark pants

Rey dresses as well. She’s not sure when she’ll next be home—it feels like there’s the risk of the campaign trail changing every day for staffers like her, and she really should find a dry cleaner who can take care of her shirts and suits and skirts.  Especially if she keeps leaving them on the floor of Ben’s room when they’re fucking.  She remembers two nights before when he’d hung his jacket up.  She needs to start doing that.  It’s so easy to forget.

Ben gives her a quick kiss and heads out before her—all the better to keep the secret with, and a few minutes later, Rey texts Rose and Finn.

_Are you headed over to the airport?_

_Waiting for a cab downstairs.  Hurry up._

So she does.  And finds herself in the back of a cab next to Rose and Finn, racing the sun to the airport.  This time, Finn is dozing with his head on Rose’s shoulder and Rey glances at him before raising her eyebrows significantly at Rose.

Rose gives her a half-smile and an eyeroll and Rey pats her leg conciliatorily. 

“Will you be ok?” Rose asks her quietly.

“Yeah.  Handled it better this morning.”

“You sure?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Rey asks, feeling more confident than she sounds.

It’s a three hour flight, rather than a seven hour one this time, and Rey spends all of it fielding emails to and from state campaign offices, reading through their response rates on volunteer calls and taking note of which concerns kept cropping up and which ones seemed hardly important at all.

Not once is she distracted by her womb, by her nipples and sex, by the scent she knows she is wafting out throughout the entire cabin just for Ben's nose.  It’s just her and her laptop and when they are disembarking Rey feels ready for sea level in a way that she hadn’t the day before. 

 _Maybe my Heat is fading?_ she wonders.  But that can’t be it.  Her past Heats have lasted at least five days, and sometimes as many as eight if she doesn’t get fucked properly.  But there isn’t an argument in the world that Ben hasn’t fucked her properly. Maybe he’s fucked her too properly.

Before Rey can get into one of the vans to take her off to the event, however, someone grabs her arm. It’s not Ben, she can tell from the grip and she turns to see Poe standing there.  “Let’s get to base,” he says.

“Do we have a base?” she asks.  They’re flying out again that night, a thought that only really hits her when she realizes that when her Heat comes back, she and Ben won’t have a good private place to take care of it. 

“We’ve got some rooms at one of the airport hotels,” Poe says.  “We’ll circle up there until the flight out tonight.”  Heading back east. 

“What’s the plan for the weekend?” she asks, shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other as she follows Poe away from the vans.

“It’ll depend a bit on Ney,” Poe responds.  “And the numbers.”  He gives Rey a sidelong glance.  “Don’t know whether to send her north or south.  And of course, she wants to bring Luke in for one last push, but we’re worried it’ll come off as needy.  Ney’s people will certainly play it that way.”

“Luke Skywalker,” Rey tries not to sound dreamy.

If there was one person in the world who had made her understand what it meant to be a demi—more than the Big Cats Forums, more than what she’d had to discover for herself the hard way, it was Luke Skywalker and his radio show.  She hadn’t listened frequently—only once every few weeks, whenever she could wrest control of Unkar’s beaten up old radio out of his hands for an hour or two.  Luke was always gentle, always kind.  He had an answer for everything, and made her feel as though maybe it wasn’t some sort of horrible curse that she was a demi.  And Luke was the General’s brother.

Ben’s uncle. 

She hadn’t really thought about that, not since she’d started being whatever she and Ben are to one another.  Before, she’d been able to brush it off.  Asshole Ben Solo who used to work for Snoke and who had made the country worse for it, who was nothing like the charming Leia Organa—he’d be nothing like his kind uncle too.  And now…

“Yeah,” Poe says. “Skywalker’s gonna be great come the general election, but for a primary—it might make her look weak.”

“She’s not weak,” Rey says firmly.

“She’s not strong. She should be sweeping the floor with a bland candidate like Ney.  She’s _Leia Organa_.”  Poe shrugs.  “Anyway—it ain’t over till it’s over, and we’re trying to decide if we split the team and send Skywalker one way and the General in the other.”

“Would I get to meet him? Even if we’re splitting the campaign?”

“I imagine we’ll all come back together on Super Tuesday,” Poe says.  “The General’s been making noises about having everyone over for brisket or something while we watch returns.”

“I hope there’s also alcohol planned,” Rey says dryly.  She should definitely be past her Heat by Tuesday, and she could definitely use a stiff drink. 

“Obviously,” Poe snorts. “Let’s get through the weekend first. We’re hoping to kick off the weekend news cycle on a high note.  Some kids are campaigning for her in the southwest and they’re real cute and we’re working on getting a story about them to be the main thing over the weekend.”

“Sounds like a plan. Kids always play well,” Rey grins.

She and Poe set up in one of the conference rooms, along with twenty other staffers.  He orders lunch for them and Rey’s well into her slice of pizza before her phone buzzes.

She sees a text from Rose.

_FYI—he’s in a bad mood._

Rey frowns.  There can only _be_ one he, and he’d seemed as content as a kitten this morning.  Unless he was tired?

_Define bad mood?_

_As in he’s back to his normal self?  He and Finn have been at each other’s throats about ad strategy for the last half hour._

Rey grimaces and checks her watch.  _We’ve only been up for six hours,_ she thinks. 

She glances at Poe—not that she has any reason to, he doesn’t care who she’s texting—and switches to the text window with Ben.

_You ok?_

The reply is immediate.

_I’m fine._

“Oh boy,” she mutters, quite sure that that’s not the case.  She switches back to Rose.

_How long before you get here?_

_Another twenty minutes, maybe._

_How’s Finn?_

_Angry._

_Wonderful._

“They’re nearly here,” Rey tells Poe who nods. 

“Good.”

They hear them before they see them.  Or rather, everyone hears them.  Rey can smell Ben the moment he gets out of the elevator and she feels herself begin to twitch.

“Just because they’re effective doesn’t mean that they’re the right thing to do,” Finn is snapping.

“And what’s the point of what’s right or wrong if we can’t actually win the damn thing?”

“Maybe because they’ll hate—”

“Oh don’t be stupid. They’ll hate us anyway.”

Finn’s the first one through the door and he makes a beeline for Rey and Poe.  And Rey can see from Ben’s face as he follows suit that that was the wrong direction for Finn to have taken.  She sees the way his eyes follow her friend as he makes his way towards her, sees the way that she’s sitting next to Poe and watches as his face darkens.

“It’s not about getting them to like us, it’s about getting them to hate us less.  And if we—”

“Hate us less?  Than Ney who’s so bland even his own mother can’t find him in a crowd?  No matter what they’ll have stronger reactions to us than Ney.  That’s part of the problem.  They don’t see the threat in his lily-livered weak platform.  So show he’s weak.”

“I’d rather show that we’re strong,” snaps Finn.  “That we’re—”

“Oh cut the crap,” Ben snarls and he’s getting closer, his nostrils flared and Rey’s transfixed. She’s never seen him angry like this before.  Being an asshole, yes, but angry?  “They already know we’re strong.  That’s not why they’re not voting for us.  It’s because they’re afraid someone with an opinion might actually not be able to win, while someone who’s bland but likeable will.  So show the world that he’s not actually that fucking likeable and—”

“Ben,” Leia’s voice cuts through the room and he whirls.  Rey hadn’t noticed that the General had arrived and her eyes are on her son.  He’s a good foot taller than she is, but she seems to tower over him now. 

It only lasts a moment. He straightens up and snaps, “You can’t honestly think that it wouldn’t work.  You can’t be that—”

“I know they’ll work. But we’re not using them.  Not in a primary, not when I need Ney after we win and are in a showdown with Snoke.  I need the whole party to remember that I mean it when I say we’re stronger together.”

“And you think Snoke’s not gonna see that coming?  That he’s not going to have prepared for—”

“As I recall, that’s what I pay you for,” she replies evenly and the room seems to go deadly quiet. “But since we’re not up against Snoke just yet, let’s put a pin in it until after Tuesday.  We’re not going to attack Ney.  That’s final.”

“You’re going to lose.”

A few people gasp and stare at Ben.  Some mutter behind their hands.  But everyone’s staring at either Ben or his mother.

“You need to cool off and get your head back in the game,” Leia Organa says quietly.  “Go on.  Go cool off. Don’t come back here until you’re calm again.”

He’s breathing heavily and it takes him a moment before he storms from the room. 

The General glances at Poe. “I trust I don’t need to repeat myself about the kind of ads we’re running until Tuesday.”

“No ma’am.”

“Good.”  The General grabs a slice of pizza and takes a bite. She closes her eyes for a moment and when she opens them, she looks at Rey.  “Rey, a quick word.”

They step into a smaller room just off the conference room.

“Rey.”  Her voice is very strange.

“General?”

“Please know that what I’m about to ask you has nothing to do with your professional capacity, as a campaign staffer, or as a person.”  The General gives her a firm gaze, her face twisted in an expression of self-disgust. “Can you please go take care of my son?” Rey’s stomach bottoms out, and heat floods her face.  “He’s always been horrible when he’s in Rut and I don’t know what’s gotten into him today.”

“Yes ma’am,” Rey squeaks out before fleeing.

The room still smells like him, and it’s bustling with new activity.  Finn and Rose wave her over but she pretends not to see them and slips out into the hallway and sniffs.  But he could have gone in any direction, so she texts him.

_Where are you?_

He doesn’t respond but a door down the hallway opens and he sticks his head out of it, and Rey hurries towards him. 

He smells like sex and rage and the moment she’s through the door he closes it and locks it behind her and he’s got her pressed up against it as he kisses her hard, his tongue delving so deep into her mouth she almost gags.  

She digs her hands into his hair and pulls his face away from hers.  “Hey,” she whispers.  “I’m still me.  Let me breathe.”

His nostrils flare and she can feel him shaking against her and he’s lost in it—lost in the Rut and in the anger and if it were anyone but Ben she’d have kneed him in the groin and fled. 

But she’s not afraid of him. And, worse, the scent of him like this has her getting wet—especially with his cock hard against her belly like that—and soon she’ll be just as lost as he is if she doesn’t act fast. 

So she kisses him—quick little kisses across his lips, across his cheeks, rubbing her scent glands against his face.  “I’m here,” she murmurs to him and his hands tighten at her hips and she bites back a strangled moan because she likes that, likes how strong his grip is, how his presence sends her dizzy.  “Don’t fuck me because you’re angry.  Fuck me because I’m me.”

Her lips connect to his neck and she reaches a hand up to loosen his tie and undo the top buttons of his shirt.  She sucks at the skin of his neck—still hickied from the first night she’d fucked him and his pulse is rioting under her lips.  She keeps her hands rested on his chest, rubbing them up and down, feeling two layers of fabric underneath them.  _Too many_ , she thinks. They’re wearing too many clothes. She’s too hot for this many clothes and she brings her lips up to his ear, nipping at his earlobe.  “ _Fuck me, Ben,_ ” she tells him.

She feels his dick twitch against her stomach.

He still has her pressed between the door and himself.  His eyes are closed when she pulls her head away from his and she wonders if he’s about to snap or if she’s going to need to take control again.  The other alphas may have treated her badly, but Ben’s a stranger alpha than any she’s ever fucked before.  She’d been prepared for him to go hard against her, to be rougher, to be more animalistic because of his Rut but he’s just standing there, still as a statue as she rubs herself against him.

She’s not sure what else she can do—except to gently push him back a few feet so she can get out from between him and the door.  He looks horrified and even lets out a strangled “no, please, don’t go—” that dies in his throat when he sees her sink down to her knees in front of him in one of the most telling gestures one can have when one’s partner is just that aroused. She undoes his belt, and pulls him loose and locks eyes with him for a moment.  Then she feels his hands in her hair, nudging her lips forward and she opens her mouth and engulfs him.

Or tries to.

He’s big.

She’s known he’s big—she’s felt him stretch her out when he’s fucked her.  But feeling him in her swollen, needy cunt is very different from taking him into her mouth while his fingers twist in her hair, pulling it loose from its pony tail as he groans and bucks into her throat.  She tries to relax—she’s deepthroated other alphas and if she’s going to deepthroat anyone, it’s Ben—but he’s moving too quickly and for the first time since they really started fucking, she feels him take control.

He’s told her to let go before, and she had because she trusts him.  This is different.  This is his hand locking in her hair while his hips buck forward and back into her mouth. This is him pulling out of her mouth completely to rub his precum on her face before going back in with shallow thrusts that are almost too quick for her to react to.  And Rey loves it.  She loves the taste of him—how hasn’t she done this before?—and the way the sweet sent of his cum is right in her nose, filling her whole body with need as she looks up at him from the floor.

He’s watching her, his eyes hooded, his breathing shaky but he’s watching her.  He cannot take his eyes off her as he fucks into her face and in a moment she realizes that he may leading, but everything he does is because of her.  Whatever rage had possessed him, that was fading and there he was again.  Her Ben.  Her Ben who smells like heaven and whose precum is on her face and she wants him inside her—needs him.  But she can’t tell him that particularly easily with her mouth full of his cock.

So she whimpers, looking up at him, and pulls the waist of her skirt further up her stomach and he pulls out of her again, helping her to her feet and kissing her hard again.  She feels him smile into her lips and he rubs his nose into one of the spots he’d dripped precum onto.  _I smell like you now,_ she thinks, knowing that’s what’s got him smiling.  _I’m yours._ She rubs her head against his neck.  _And you smell like me._

And then he’s pushing her facedown onto the table, hoisting her skirt up a little higher so that her ass is exposed in her underwear.  She feels his finger hook into the underpants and tug it down her legs.  He spreads them, then she moans as he pushes himself into her, bending over so she can feel him pressing against her back, feel his breath hot against the back of her neck. 

He stays like that for a moment and she can feel his heart racing in his chest and she can tell he’s gathering himself, that he’d been close to done already and he wants to be able to rut into her with every piece of him for as long as he can.

His lips press into the back of her neck, then nips at her skin there.  Rey tilts her head and opens her eyes and the first thing she notices is that right in front of her, what she’d thought was a window from the framing of it and the way it adds a dim light to the room is actually a mirror. She watches as she reaches a hand back to find Ben’s cheek, as his shoulders tense, as he stands back up and in the mirror his eyes lock with hers.  His lips curl into a smile, and with a snap of his hips, he voids and enters her and Rey’s eyes roll from it.

His pace is brutal, one of his hands on her hips, the other pressed into the spot between her shoulder-blades, keeping her pressed flat against the table.  She can’t move her hips at all, can’t push herself back onto him, match his pace.  He’s grunting and moaning behind her and she watches as his eyes flutter closed and his head falls back as he loses himself in her and Rey breathes as deeply as she can even as the heat of him inside her sends swirling hormones up through her body. 

How different he looks now, his face twitching in pleasure, all signs of anger gone.  How beautiful he is, how powerful he looks, still mostly dressed with her bent over the table in front of him.  Rey’s eyes flicker to her own face and what she sees there freezes her own heart. 

She’s never seen what she looks like during sex.  Her hair is disheveled, her eyes are bright.  Her face has relaxed into a smile and her cheeks are flushed and her lips are shining from her own drool.  But most importantly of all, she can see that mixed with all of that, there is a need that is being satiated, the same relieved expression that comes when one is parched and has just downed a large glass of water.

And that’s what makes her come with a mewl and a moan, her eyes rolling into the back of her head and her mind going blissfully blank as her head drops to her hands on the table and she feels herself going tight around him.  She’s throbbing, her blood is singing, and Ben’s behind her slaking her thirst and she’s slaking his.  She’s a shuddering mess, breathing as deeply as she can as with every thrust he sends more tremors shooting through her, as though his cock is forcing her aftershocks out into every other muscle of her body.

“Oh, Ben,” she mumbles, closing her eyes as the contentedness washes over her.

And he knots, collapsing forward onto her again, his chest pressing her into the table, his heart hammering against her spine.  

“I didn’t think this through,” he mumbles after a moment and he raises his chest, looking around the room. “I…did not think this through.”

She looks around the room now too.  There are a few plastic and metal chairs around the table, but other than that, it’s mostly empty.  Perfect for a heated tryst, not great for the aftermath of a knot.

“There’s a rug on the floor,” Rey says.  “We can just lie down.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s either that or stay like this for the next half hour.”

He kisses the back of her neck, rubbing his face against her skin, and then, awkwardly begins easing them towards the floor.  Rey winces. The bulge of his knot hurts as he shifts them, even though she knows he’s trying to be careful.  But it ends up with him spooned around her as he had been on the first night, his face pressed into her hair.

“What got you so riled up?” she asks him quietly, reaching a hand up behind her to run her fingers through his hair.  He’s calmer now.  _I don’t know how to be calm around you, and yet I’m only calm around you._ He breathes deeply behind her, and doesn’t answer right away.  “Ben?”

“It was a lot of things,” he mumbles.  “Most of them dumb.  The only thing Ruts are good for is what we just did.  Everything else about them is terrible.”

Rey can relate to that, but a sad thought crosses her mind.  “Your Ruts make you angry?  Have you thought about changing your suppressants or—”

“No,” he says.  “That is to say—I’ve tried a few and they don’t work. I mean they do because I’ve been able to vaguely control myself around you for the past few days, but they don’t help with the anger because the Ruts don’t make me angry, the magnify the anger that’s already there.  So it’s not my endocrinologist who has to figure it out, it’s my therapist.”

It’s the first time he’s mentioned a therapist. 

“So then what was it today? That made you angry?”

“Fear,” he replies evenly. “Fear leads to anger.”  He swallows.  “We’re working on backtracking the anger leads to hate bit.  That’s taking time.  But it’s fear mostly—when I’m angry.”

“So what were you afraid of today?”

“That we’re going to lose,” he says.  “I meant that.  She’s playing too nice, which is ironic because she’s cutthroat.  But she has to play it nice because everyone judges women who aren’t nice in a way that bland fucking Anib Ney doesn’t have to worry about. I’m afraid we’re going to lose because of me.  Because everyone in the party hates me, and everyone in the campaign hates me—”

“I don’t hate you.”

He rubs his face into her hair again, and she feels him shaking a little bit and for a moment, she wonders if he’s crying.  She tries to turn to see him, but he won’t move his face from her hair and there’s only so much—even with the extra vertebrae—that she can do when he’s spooning her like this.  “You’re probably alone in that,” he mumbles, his voice thick.  “You and my mom.  Anyway,” he takes a deep breath.  “I’m afraid we’re going to lose.  So that makes me angry.  And that triggers dumb fucking bullshit in my instincts, like seeing Poe Dameron grab your arm.”

“Poe’s a full,” Rey says blankly.  Ben hadn’t gotten frustrated with Rose’s scent on her at all the last time it had happened.

“Yeah, but he’s an asshole, which I know is rich coming from me, but—”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Poe.  Finn was the one who found the campaign and Poe hired us both and wanted me to come on the trail.”

Ben makes a noise behind her.  “So I guess I have to be grateful for that.  But him prancing around acting like he’s a better goddamn son to my mom than I am—I’m tired of it.  It makes me angry.  She and I may have a lot of shit to work out, but that doesn’t mean he can come in and replace me.”  And Rey understands.

“So me going off with him today—”

“Shouldn’t matter,” he says. “It shouldn’t matter.  Like it doesn’t matter that your friends with an alpha and she did your hair the other night.”  It doesn’t surprise her that he’d scented that at all.  “But like I said, I’m constantly so close to Rut around you and today I cracked and it did matter.  Like it mattered when Finn—who I barely fucking know—went over to you.  It was like we were losing the campaign _and_ everyone was trying to take you away from me and—” he cuts himself off.  “And I was afraid.  So I got angry.  And then I was afraid you’d hate my anger and got even angrier.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” Rey says firmly.  “I really wasn’t.  I might have been if you hadn’t been able to get control of—”

“I was able to because you were there.  And that shouldn’t be how that goes.  I should be able to control myself.”

“I didn’t mind helping.”

“Which makes me more adamant that you shouldn’t have had to.  It’s not your job to fix me, it’s not your job to make me function like a human being.  I need to do that myself.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with my helping you,” she says quietly. Isn’t that what couples are supposed to do?  Help one another?  That Rey is even thinking about him coupled to her is major for her.  She’s never let anyone in like that before, not this deeply, not even Finn.  But it feels like he’s pushing her away, somehow. 

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he tells her and his voice goes gentle in reaction to her quiet. “But it can’t be the only thing that stops me from being angry.  You can’t carry that weight on your own or else it’ll smother you.  Your help—” he takes a deep breath.  “Your help means the world to me.  But if I smother you for helping, I’ll never forgive myself. And if I ever can’t control my anger when you’re trying to help, if I ever hurt you, or—or something, fucking leave me.”

“You won’t,” she says firmly.  She knows this, she has faith in it, even if Ben’s afraid. “I know you won’t.”

“I hope you’re right,” he whispers.  “I’m…”

“Afraid,” she whispers and finds one of his hands and laces her fingers through his.  “Don’t be afraid of yourself, Ben.”

“I’m always afraid of myself.  That’s the whole problem.”

Rey doesn’t know what to say to that.  She wants to bury her face in his chest, to wrap her arms around him, but she can’t do that while they’re knotted like this.  So instead she lies there, her hand tight in his.

“There’s not going to be a good way to get my scent off you,” he says at last, breaking the silence. “I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rey says, and she feels her cheeks flush with embarrassment at the memory of her brief conversation with the General.

“It doesn’t—”

“Matter,” she says. 

“What changed?” he asks slowly and she can hear the frown in his voice.  And contrary to her wish that she could bury her face in his chest moments before she finds herself suddenly very glad he can’t look at her. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You go from wanting it to be a secret, from wanting not to appear as though you’re sleeping your way to the top to saying it doesn’t matter?  What changed?”

“Your mom knows.”

“We already knew—” he stops short.  “She sent you after me, didn’t she?”  Rey doesn’t reply, but she is quite sure he’ll know her cheeks are burning.  He has a remarkable habit of being able to read her mind.  “Do you want me to talk to her?”

“No, I think she hated it quite as much as I did.”

“I’m so sorry.  If I’d just…”  He lets out a frustrated growl. 

“Anyway—I don’t think anything anyone will say will come across quite like the General telling me to take care of her son with a knowing look.”  She pauses.  “I know they’ll all be able to smell you on me, but would other alphas be able to smell me on you?”

Ben pauses.  “I don’t know.”

“I’ll ask Rose later.”

“I can’t tell if it would be better or worse—that only my mom can smell the full picture.  The only other cat alpha in the place and it’s my mom.”

“Your mom’s an alpha?” Rey asks, surprised.  She’d assumed that the General was an omega.  She has a son, after all.  “I—”

“Yeah,” Ben snorts. “She is.”

“How did—how do—”

“I exist?”

“I didn’t know female alphas could have kids.”

“Neither did my mom,” laughs Ben bitterly.  “I was an accident.  Can’t you tell?”  She brings his palm to her lips as he continues.  “They’re starting to do more medical studies about it.  My dad’s a full, and my mom’s still a female, so the working theory is that they could still have full kids.  So why I’m a demi is a big question mark—unless my dad has demi blood somewhere back a few generations.  Which I guess he could.  He always did have catlike reflexes, and my mom picked him for some reason so maybe he had a nice scent to him or something.”  

His knot begins to loosen and to her surprise Ben laughs.  “And there we are again.  I start thinking about my parents and I lose my hard-on.  Good trick to remember if we’re ever on a tight schedule.”  He kisses her neck again, and begins to extract himself from her. 

As Rey stands she whimpers. His cum is leaking down her legs and there is no way she’ll be able to shower.  She turns for the door but he grabs her arm and pulls her back to him, sinking down to his knees.  He tugs aside her underwear and her eyes roll into the back of her head as he licks her clean.  “I like that,” he whispers into her cunt.  “The taste of us together.”

She hums.  “I’ll have to try it next time.”  He grins up at her, stands and kisses her, his tongue slipping between her lips and she can catch the echo of it.  It tastes sweet.  It tastes right.

“They’re going to be able to smell my cum on your face,” he whispers, his thumb brushing over the spot where he’d rubbed it earlier.

“Luckily faces are easy to wash in sinks.”  He sighs with relief, and she smiles up at him, amused.  “Don’t want your mom smelling your cum on me?”

He closes his eyes and his expression grows serious.  “Not particularly.  I…things are what they are right now, and it’s getting better, but it’s not…”

Since they’re standing now, she can hug him, so she does, tilting her chin up to look at him. 

“I don’t know if it’ll ever be perfect,” he mutters.  “But we’re trying.”

“Trying what?” she asks quietly, not sure if now’s the time to ask.  But curiosity is burning in her, and he had sort of brought it up.

He takes a deep breath, and she wonders if he’s trying to calm himself, if he’s afraid now.  She kisses his chest, smelling him through his shirt and undershirt. 

“The hardest part about it is that it wasn’t intentional,” he says at last.  “That’s something I’m working on with my therapist.  Coming to terms with that.  I wasn’t intentional—I was an accident.  She wasn’t intentional, working hard and being busy.  She didn’t mean to.  But that didn’t stop it from being neglected when I was a kid.

“And she always got me better than my dad.  Which made it worse, especially when I was a teenager in my first Rut, because being fourteen sucks especially if you’re getting full puberty and demi growth at the same time.”  Rey remembers _that_ distinctly.  It had hit her when she’d been twelve, and skinny, and alone.  “So it’s this weird…dynamic where she understands me—she’s my _mom_ —and I know she loves me.  But we have a lot to rebuild because my natural state is assuming that, even if she does love me, she doesn’t care about me.”

He rolls his jaw, and swallows.  “So we’re rebuilding.  And she knows what I experienced, and I get her better now than I could have when I was a kid.  Adulthood helps.  And being able to work with her has been good too because I’m finally meeting her on her level which I never could have done when I was younger because I was young. And there’s nothing in the world like coming out of an existential crisis, knowing that you might be political suicide for your mom, and having her say ‘You’re an asshole for the stuff you’ve worked on.  But I love you and we’ll figure it out.’” 

Rey’s arms tighten around him, squeezing him so hard that she hears one of the vertebrae in his back crack. 

“So yeah—I’m afraid we’re gonna lose.  I’m afraid that I’ll have made that happen.  That I’ll lose rebuilding with my mom, and lose you and I’ll be back to being as helpless as I was when I quit Snoke.”

“We’re not going to lose,” she tells him. 

“We might.”

“Stop it.  Stop saying that.  We can’t lose.  I can’t lose.”  She gives him her fiercest look.  “I can’t lose this job, I can’t lose this insurance.  Every hope I have of being able to actually make a life for myself means I have to keep going.  Or else I’m back where I started.”

He looks at her for a moment, and she sees his head moving quickly.  “You won’t be,” he says quietly.  “I can help keep you safe.  If you’ll let me.  You’re not alone—not if you don’t want to be.”

She swallows and stares up at him.  Because of course—of course, they’d talked—not explicitly, but they had definitely danced around it—about futures.  She’s even thought of them as coupled in this very conversation.  And that—that is definitely something couples do.  _He’s trying to help me.  Like I tried to help him._

_But he can’t be the only one.  I need to do it for myself._

She nods up at him. “But we have to win.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I legit wasn't planning to post this chapter until Thursday but 1) your reviews are the sweetest and 2) (as evidenced by the sheer existence of this fic) I have no self control. So here have a happy Monday!

Rey is tracking volunteer calls the next day when the news breaks.

“What’s that?” Poe asks, pointing to the TV. “Turn it up and everyone shut up.”

Rey turns around and there’s a picture of Ben—not Ben as she knows him now, but Ben walking alongside Snoke as they make their way to a presidential meeting. His face is thinner, he looks gaunter, and his eyes are so very hard. “Solo served in President Snoke’s administration for two years before quitting. Three months later, he resurfaced and began working for the Organa campaign.” The picture of Ben fades and the news anchor reappears, looking simultaneously grim and delighted to be breaking whatever story she is breaking.

“The memo, which is thirty pages in length outlines opposition research headed by Solo during Snoke’s first campaign and is dated from primary season. It outlines in exacting details every way in which Snoke could defeat Organa for the—”

“Fuck him,” Poe shouts, his fist coming down to land on the table in front of him. “God fucking damn it. This is going to run all fucking weekend.”

The news anchor is beginning to summarize the memo for her audience and Rey stares at Poe in horror. “What do we do?” she asks. She needs to know. There has to be something. There _has_ to be.

“First of all, make sure the volunteers know about this, stat,” Poe says. “The ones on calls are about to get question after question about Solo and not the General’s policies.”

Poe’s phone is in his hand and he’s pulling it to his ear. “When she’s done, you put her through to me. Holdo, now isn’t the time—turn on any fucking news network.”

Rey’s phone seems to burn in her pocket. _I should text him_ , she thinks. He’s about to be hit from all sides and her head is hurting. He’d told her he was working on it, that things were better than they had been, that they were working together now in a way that they never had before.

And four years ago, he’d detailed in thirty pages how to destroy his mother’s campaign.

And that was leaking the Friday before Super Tuesday.

Her phone buzzes and she grabs it, knowing it’s him.

Except it’s not.

It’s Finn.

_We’re fucked._

_Don’t say that._

_We are._

_The General’s son. Her SON did this._

_I know it looks bad._

_Looks bad? It looks terrible. And you know she’s too good a person to vilify him which is what we need. She wouldn’t even go negative._

_We’re gonna lose._

_Finn, please don’t say that._

_Drinks tonight? I need to get blasted._

Rey doesn’t respond. She can’t respond. To see Finn lose hope shook her.

 _Her son did this,_ she thinks. _Ben did this to his mother. He had a mother and—_

She slams the door on that thought. That’s not fair. It’s not. She and Ben aren’t the same, and his mother never abandoned him. Even if he felt that way as a kid. Even if his therapist was working through emotional neglect with him. Even if—

Her phone buzzes again _,_ this time it’s Rose.

_What’s Poe saying? What’s the plan?_

_He’s still waiting for the General to get off her stump._

_Is she off yet? Does she know?_

_Not yet. I’d hoped we’d already be working on an action plan._

Rey glances at Poe. She’s supposed to be warning volunteers. She puts her phone on mute and begins to write an email to send out to everyone who signed up to call, taking care to craft the words as neutrally as possible. _It’s Ben,_ she thinks, every time she refers to him as Mr. Solo. _Ben_ , she thinks as she writes about how the campaign is taking the leaked memo seriously, and if they get questions about the situation, they should be sure to refer people back to the official campaign statements, which would be made before the end of the day.

There are tears in her eyes as she types, she realizes. _We’re going to lose,_ she thinks, panicking. _Just like Ben predicted._

Did Ben know this was coming? Or had he forgotten it? She should look at her phone again, but she can’t. If he has texted her, she knows she’ll break down. And if he hasn’t—

“Poe,” she calls and he’s on the phone and holds up a finger. She waits. A few minutes later, he hangs up, his face grim. “Poe can you look this over before I hit send?”

He does, leaning over her shoulder, his eyes scanning the email. “Punch it.” She does.

“We’re likely bringing in Skywalker,” Poe tells her, his voice low.

Rey nods. Luke had wanted to be neutral, and they hadn’t wanted to bring him in. It had hadn’t been a source of conflict.  But Ben had blown that wide open.

Her curiosity gets the better of her. She looks at her phone.

Nothing.

Nothing since her last text from Rose. Nothing from Ben.

Her fingers hover over her keyboard for a moment. Then the door opens and she catches his scent and looks up.

The General has arrived and she does not look happy. Ben is standing behind her, looking lost. Rey stares at him but he does not look at her. Not, she knows, because he doesn’t know she is there. He’ll know just as clearly as she had known he was coming through the doors. He does not look at her because she knows he is scared.

“Well, you all know,” the General says, looking around. “We’ll figure it out. It’s not over until it’s over. Don’t lose hope.”

Rey had never felt more hopeless. She just wants Ben to look at her, to show some sign he’s ready for the fight. Because even if she’s hopeless, she’s not ready to just give in.

“I just got off the phone with my brother. He’s going to do some campaign events up north, hopefully keep our base from questioning whether they’re our base or not. Poe—pick some people to send out to staff him.”

Poe nods, and the General turns, heading towards her office.

“General,” someone calls, and a chill goes up Rey’s spine. “What about him?”

Ben’s eyes snap to the questioner and Leia Organa goes still for a moment before turning to look as well. The man looks unafraid. If anything, he looks defiant. “I maintain,” Leia says calmly, “that he brings more benefit to the campaign than not. Even now. Besides—I’m not firing my son.”

“General—” someone interrupts and she raises her eyebrows and this new interlocutor falls silent.

“That all?”

There’s silence in the room, and Leia takes a deep breath. “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night. Let’s make it through the night, team.” She continues towards the office and the door closes behind her, Ben, and Amilyn Holdo.

“Rey,” Poe says at once. “You’re going to Skywalker. Kaydel, you too. Go pack, we’ll figure out flights for you.”

“Are you coming?” Kaydel asked.

“The General didn’t specify. I’m gonna find out.”

She’ll get to meet Luke Skywalker, something she had never even dared dream from her shack, listening to his words on the radio.

She’ll have to leave Ben behind for a few days, when he might need her. Sadly, she thinks of what he’d said to her the day before as he’d spooned her. _You can’t carry that weight on your own or else it’ll smother you._

She and Kaydel leave the room and grab a silent cab back to the hotel. It’s then that Rey texts Ben.

_Don’t be afraid._

_I’m leaving for a few days—got put on staffing Luke Skywalker._

_I’ll stay in our room as long as I can if you can get away. If you can’t, I know you’re where you need to be._

_I’ll miss you._

_Don’t be afraid._

Rey packs in a room that smells like joy and sex. She waits until Kaydel knocks on the door, and ask if she’s ready. Kaydel, she’s sure, has scented Ben on her, but doesn’t say anything about it.

They’re through airport security before Rey says to Kaydel, “Oh god. Flying.” She hadn’t even thought about it since the first day because she and Ben had managed to fuck enough and the flights had been short enough that it hadn’t mattered.

“It might be easier without him there,” Kaydel suggests, the first time that she broaches the subject of Ben, but Rey shakes her head.

“It fucked me up the first time long before I got a scent of him.”

Kaydel grimaces before glancing at the airport bar. “In that case, what do you say about getting ourselves nice and liquored before we hit the air.”

“I can’t while I’m in Heat on my suppressants.”

“Oh. Right. That’s such a bum fucking deal,” Kaydel sighs.

“Are you through your Heat?” Rey asks.

Kaydel nods. “It ended yesterday.”

It feels like so long ago. Yesterday, she and Ben had fucked and talked, and things had all felt like they were falling into place. She checks her phone again. Still nothing.

Her phone remains silent until she turns it on airplane mode as they’re sitting in seats way at the back of the plane. Rey closes her eyes and prays she’ll be able to sleep before they’re in the air. The flight is three hours, and she doesn’t know who’s in the air with them.

About halfway through the flight, her Heat uncurls in her stomach, and Rey closes her eyes, her fingers gripping the armrest so tightly her knuckles are white.

Next to her, Kaydel rests a hand on hers, knowing exactly what’s happening. “Can I get you anything? Water?” she asks quietly, but Rey just shakes her head. The thing she _wants_ is Ben. But she doesn’t know if he’s even seen her text messages yet. She doesn’t even know if he knows she’s gone.

Vividly, she imagines his reaction when learning that, on his mother’s orders, Poe Dameron had sent her away. _Don’t be afraid,_ she begs him silently. _Don’t be angry. I’ll be back. And I need to fight for this. This is fighting for you. This is fighting for_ me.

-

Just before they begin the descent down to sea level, Rey goes to the lavatory and desperately fingers herself for several minutes before coming quietly, washing her hands, and going back to sit in her seat right as the fasten seatbelts sign is being turned back on for landing preparation. She bends down to grab her phone from her purse and connects it to the wifi.

The texts from him stream in.

_Oh._

_Sorry—I didn’t see these sooner. It’s been a lot._

_I’m terrified._

_Not even angry._

_Just terrified._

_I miss you._

_Text me when you land._

_Or from the air if you connect your phone up._

_Please._

_I hope the flight isn’t too long or rough._

_I hope you’re ok._

_I miss you._

_I_

_Fuck. Sent that before I was done._

She can see him typing, knows he’s working on whatever it is that he’s working on, and Rey begins to type as well.

_We’re on our way to landing now._

_Flight could have been better._

_I miss you._

_Don’t be afraid._

He stops typing.

_Call me tonight?_

_I want to hear your voice._

_Yes._

_I want to hear yours._

_I’ll let you know when I know more about what they need from us._

_My uncle and I—we don’t get along. And I know that I don’t have the right to ask this right now, given everything that I’ve fucked up, but if he says things about me, please don’t listen._

_Please._

Rey sends him a string of heart emojis before tucking her phone away into the pocket of her blazer.

“Ben?” Kaydel asks quietly. Rey nods. Kaydel frowns. “Look, everything’s a mess right now so I’m just gonna be straight—is it more than just fucking between you two?”

Rey nods. She hasn’t even told that to Rose, and she’s still not sure Finn knows at all.

“Are you ok?” Kaydel asks and her voice is kind.

“Let’s keep moving forward,” Rey tells her. “We have to win.”

“Rey—that’s not what I was—”

“I know. And I don’t have time to not be ok right now, so let’s just not go there, all right? Ask me after Tuesday when I know for sure if I still have a job and health insurance and—” _Ben said he’d take care of me._

_I want to take care of myself._

But god, wouldn’t it be nice for once to have someone take care of her. That was what she’d fallen into with Ben. Trusting him. _I take care of him too. We take care of each other._

She hates being apart from him right now. Maybe she should have told Poe no, that Rose should go instead because Rose deserves a promotion and this would feel like one. But it’s too late for that, and the only way forward is the path she’s on.

As they’re waiting to disembark, Kaydel tells her, “Poe says that he’s meeting us at ground transportation.”

“Poe? I thought he wasn’t coming.”

“No. Luke.”

He’s waiting for them in a ten-year-old station wagon, and Kaydel slides in the front seat next to him. “Thanks for picking us up, Mr. Skywalker. We really could have gotten a cab.”

He gives Kaydel a smile before his eyes turn to Rey and she sees it, sees that flicker of recognition that comes when you know that scent. _He’s got cat blood, like his sister._

_He can smell Ben on me._

“Not to worry,” he says calmly, his gaze not leaving Rey. “Plenty of cabs until Super Tuesday. Has Poe sent you the agenda yet, or is that just me?”

“It’s in my email but I haven’t had the chance to look at it,” Kaydel replies.

“The campaign made a formal statement—did you see that too?”

“On the flight,” Kaydel says and Rey bends her head to dig out her phone. Somewhere, in the massive amounts of emails, she finds the statement.

_I understand that many of you will be angry, will be hurt. I would be lying if I were to say I hadn’t also experienced this while learning of what work my son has done. I have read through the memo he wrote while working for President Snoke, and feel confident both in my team and myself to know that his recommendations at that time are both irrelevant and that the leak—this close to Super Tuesday—was carefully planned because President Snoke knows what a fearsome opponent I would be._

_While I cannot promise that there won’t be tribulations on the road ahead, I can guarantee you that voting for me on Tuesday will—_

Rey stops reading. It’s bland. It’s toothless. It’s perfunctory. But it’s something.

-

Luke’s house is small, but nice, and Rey looks around as Wedge, Luke’s husband, talks with Kaydel about the plans for the next few days. There’s a wall of photographs by the staircase. Most are of Luke from a good thirty years before—his arm slung over Leia’s shoulder, or Wedge’s. There are pictures from their wedding a few years back when gay marriage had been legalized in their state. And there are pictures of Leia and Ben and Han Solo visiting at holidays. Ben’s big ears are sticking out, his smile is broad but his eyes are sad.

She senses Luke behind her and turns. “Mr. Skywalker,” she begins, but he raises a hand.

“You’re with him, then. That’s not something I misinterpreted in the car.” The kindness she’d heard in his voice when chatting with Kaydel in the car has faded and he’s looking seriously at Rey.

Rey nods, refusing to break eye contact with the man.

“And he’s got you believing that same sob story he told Leia? About how Snoke got into his head and took advantage of the darkness he saw there.” She and Ben had never once talked about why he worked for Snoke. It had felt like such a different Ben from the one who held her as she cried. This is jarring, to hear it called a sob story—after what he’d told her after he’d calmed down yesterday—and the words are so hard that Rey almost gasps. Luke Skywalker—famous for his kindness, for his compassion, whose words had somehow reached her even in her darkest moments and had helped her get on her feet, speaking about his own nephew that way?

“You don’t believe him?” Rey asks quietly.

Luke gives her an appraising look. “The road back from where he’s gotten to is a lot harder than Leia wants to believe. And I don’t think he’s managing it as well as he’s pretending to. You don’t come back from Snoke.”

“How would you know if you’ve never done it?” Rey hears herself demand. Maybe it’s her Heat, or maybe it’s that she’s sure Ben had cried briefly into her hair the other day, or that he’s too terrified to be angry now.

Luke’s eyebrows twitch.

“Do you know what he will have wrought working for Snoke?”

“And what he might try to undo now that he doesn’t anymore.”

“And you think that will be enough?”

“What is enough?” she asks. She barely understands how this is her first conversation with Luke Skywalker, but it is. “When will he have proven that he’s not worthy of that look on your face?”

“When he’s a new man.”

“And if he already is?”

That catches him off guard, but he recovers quickly. “You don’t know what he was like before.”

“He worked for Snoke and wrote a memo about how to defeat his mother in a presidential election. He’s the mind behind legislation that only enhances the military-industrial complex in this country, and made it easier, not harder, to find guns on the streets. I know he can be angry, derisive, and impossible to work with. What do you know of what he’s like now?”

Luke doesn’t say anything at all. He’s looking at her closely, appraisingly. Then he sighs, and turns. “I hope you’re right. I hope you didn’t get manipulated by a pair of pretty eyes.”

“I looked up to you,” she says to his back. “Your radio show when I was growing up—it gave me hope. You were always so compassionate and gentle. Why doesn’t Ben get any of that? Because of Snoke?”

“Because he’s not a child. And he shouldn’t be treated like one.”

“I hadn’t realized there was an age limit on compassion. On seeing that someone is capable of change after they’ve done wrong.”

“There’s a difference between wrong and evil. Snoke and those who work for him are evil.”

“And Ben doesn’t work for him anymore.”

But Luke just shakes his head and walks back to the kitchen. _He didn’t listen,_ Rey thinks angrily. Was everything she’d thought of him for years just a lie?

She turns back to the photo wall and looks at the picture of Ben again.

-

_Getting into the hotel now. I’m sharing a room with Kaydel, but I can stay down in the lobby to talk for a little while._

He calls her almost immediately and Kaydel gives her a sympathetic smile and takes Rey’s suitcase upstairs with her as Rey goes over to a big comfy chair in the lounge area. “Hey.”

“Hi.” He sounds exhausted, and miserable.

“Where are you?”

“Trying to sleep. It’s not working. I’ve never been a good sleeper and I just…this is a nightmare.”

“I wish I were there.”

“I do too. I sleep better with you.”

“Me too,” she whispers. She’d turned into a cuddler for him, and he is so warm and solid and she feels safe. She doesn’t want to go back to sleeping in her own bed. “I…I hate this. Not being there with you.”

“Come back. I can make Dameron—”

“No. No, I need to be here.” She doesn’t know why. Luke, while polite during dinner, had been cold. Someone else could easily be just as helpful to staffing him for the next few days as Rey. _I want to convince him that he’s wrong,_ she thinks. Oddly, that feels like a more winnable battle than the election right now. “I need to be doing what I can. I refuse to give up hope that we can still win this. And I’ll see you soon. I’ll be back with you soon, one way or the other.”

She stares out the window at the darkness. It’s late, and there aren’t many cars on the road beyond the parking lot of the hotel.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispers and she starts in surprise. “Don’t be. Only one of us is allowed to be at a time and I have a monopoly. You will be all right, no matter what happens. Especially if it’s my fault, I’ll help you. I’d help you either way, but if Tuesday goes bad—that’s my fault and I’ll make it right somehow. I don’t know how. But I will.”

The sincerity in his voice brings tears to her eyes and she wants to tuck her knees up to her chest and hug them there. But she’s not a little girl in sweats anymore—she’s wearing professional adult clothing for the first time in her life. She’d bought them with her paycheck, which everyone around her had talked about how little the campaign could pay but it was more money than Rey had ever made in her life. Health insurance and money and hope and Ben.

And it might be gone on Tuesday. The dream might be over.

She sniffles into the phone and she can hear him shifting on the other end of the phone. “Rey,” he whispers. “Sweetheart. Please trust me. Please know that you’ll be all right.”

“That’s not it,” she whispers. There’s a lump in her throat that she can’t explain, a lump that feels dusty and dry like her childhood, and she wants to press her face into Ben’s chest, wants him to be there.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Because she doesn’t. She really doesn’t. It’s something so deep she doesn’t know how it got out and up to her throat.

“Rey,” she hears him say, or start to say because there’s a loud beep and—

“No,” she moans. Her phone died. It died. Ben won’t know that—he’ll think she’d hung up on him.

And she tears through the lobby, running up the stairs to the third floor because she doesn’t want to wait for the elevator. She bursts into the bedroom to find Kaydel on the phone too, talking quietly to someone on the other end. She digs into her bag for her charger, then goes into the bathroom and slams the door, plugging it into the outlet by the sink, her hands trembling as she puts the charger into her phone.

The screen lights up, indicating that battery is too low for the phone to actually turn on. Rey hurries back out into the bedroom and opens her computer. She sends Ben an empty email whose subject line is _my phone died I’m charging it now._

She shuts her computer, and goes back into the bathroom, closing the door again to give Kaydel some privacy and waits, fingers tapping on her knees as she stares at her phone’s screen, willing it to light back up.

The screen goes black and she presses the power button. The phone turns on and as it begins to load up its apps and reconnect to the hotel’s wifi, a call comes through from Ben.

“Hi, sorry,” she says picking up.

“It’s ok,” he sounds relieved. “I just saw your email.”

“It’s been a long day,” she whispers.

“Are you in a stairwell or something? You’re echoing a bit.”

“No—I came up to the hotel room and am in the bathroom now. I’m plugged in so I won’t die again.”

“Can we—can we switch to video. I want to see your face.”

Rey pulls the phone away from her ear and presses a few buttons and a moment later his face is on the screen of the phone. The room he’s in is dark, and he flinches for a second because the bathroom lights are so bright against his night vision. He looks exhausted—there are dark circles under his eyes.

“You should sleep,” she whispers to him. She hates the sight of him exhausted.

“I can’t,” he mutters. “Every time I try, I get anxious. This is all my fault. All my stupid, weak fault.”

“You’re not weak.”

He snorts derisively. “It’s only weakness that would have sent me to Snoke to begin with.”

“You’re not weak,” she repeats. “Ben, don’t—”

He’s shaking his head. “Yeah. I know. Putting myself down only perpetuates everything that’s broken in me. Dr. Yoda tells me the same thing when I see him.” He sighs and when he looks at her and his eyes go soft. “I miss you. I miss you so much, Rey. Everything’s a lot and it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s—”

“Snoke leaked it on purpose. Either to get back at you or because he’s scared of your mother—possibly both. If you hadn’t written the memo, someone else would have and he’d still have leaked it.”

“Yeah, but I wrote it, which makes it worse. I can’t take that back, and I can’t escape from it.” His face contorts. “I hate that I wish you were here because at least if you were here, I could fucking lose my mind for an hour.”

“Touch yourself,” she tells him and he blinks in surprise. She lowers her voice. She can’t tell if Kaydel is still on the phone in the other room, and she certainly doesn’t want her to hear this. “I’m here. Touch yourself. Lose your mind. I’m here, Ben.”

His breath hitches and his eyelids flutter and she knows that he’s doing it. “I wish it were you,” he whispers.

“It is me,” she whispers. “It’s me, Ben. Don’t you feel that?”

He is staring at his phone as though his life is depending on it, and Rey pulls hers closer to her face. “Do you smell me?” she whispers. “Are you in the same bed we were in last night?”

“Yes,” he chokes out. “It’s the only thing keeping me sane right now.”

“Smell me,” she whispers. “I’m there with you, I promise Ben.”

It’s the most she’s ever talked to him when doing something like this. It feels strange. She doesn’t know what to say. She’s just watching him watch her, the light from the bathroom coming through his screen to illuminate his face in the darkness in an almost eerie way. He’s breathing hard, his nostrils flared and she can imagine the way his hormones are probably rolling off him right now.

If it weren’t for Kaydel in the next room, and the fact that she’s vividly aware she’s sitting on a toilet and that’s a bit of a turnoff, she’d slide her hands down between her underpants too.

“Do you feel me?” she whispers to him.

“Rey,” he moans and his eyes close. And then, more guttural, more long, “ _Rey_.”

He goes very still and when his eyes drift open again, they’re contented. Rey smiles down at him through the screen and he smiles back up at her, and it looks like a real smile, a genuine happy, relieved smile.

Then, still breathing heavily, he murmurs, “Your turn,” right as Kaydel knocks on the door of the bathroom.

“Rey? Are you almost done in there? I’d like to brush my teeth and stuff.”

“I have to go,” Rey whispers, and Ben looks dismayed. “Kaydel needs the bathroom. I miss you. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye,” he says quietly and she ends the call.

Her phone buzzes as she passes Kaydel on the way out, and she sees a text from Ben.

_You should though. After she’s done. Make sure you sleep tonight too._

_I will. Get some rest, Ben._

But as she gets into her pajamas, she realizes that even though she’d coaxed him to an orgasm, she’s not really that hot. A little wet, but not hot.

Her Heat has ended.

It’s the fastest Heat she’s ever had.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey wakes to the sound of Kaydel moving around the hotel room.

“What time is it?” Rey mumbles. Ben had been her alarm clock while she’d been in Heat, but now she’s alone and back to sleeping so deeply she constantly fears oversleeping when she jerks awake.

“It’s early,” Kaydel says. “I’m headed to the gym to run for a little bit.” She leaves and Rey, deciding it will be dangerous to go back to sleep, drags herself from the bed and goes to take a shower since she hadn’t the night before.

Only then, with the warm water and soap for company, Rey heeds Ben’s suggestion from the night before, closes her eyes, and pretends her hands are his for a few minutes while she slides two fingers inside herself. (Four had felt like not enough only the day before, yet two fills her perfectly now. With a lurch, she wonders what Ben’s cock will feel like when she makes it back to him. He’d stretched her out even when she’d been in Heat.) She pictures his face from this time yesterday, before the memo had been leaked, when they’d been cautiously optimistic about Tuesday and that optimism had danced in his eyes as he’d slid down the bed to lick at her again. (“I like waking you up this way,” he’d teased, his breath cooling her hot skin. Rey had moaned.)

Now it’s just her, and focusing on that confident Ben because if she spends too much time thinking of him yesterday her heart will break and she won’t get off at all.

She has to actually work at it today. Her body isn’t begging for release, and she’s more than a little worried Kaydel will come back from the gym at any second and need the shower. Her mind is swirling with Luke Skywalker, and the campaign, and whether Ben’s ok, and it’s hard to stay focused on herself, even with her eyes closed, even thinking of him.

She gives up after a while and sits down on the floor of the bathtub, letting water wash over her and letting herself feel sorry for herself for a few moments. The last scent of him on her is gone. Her cunt is not playing along nicely with her wants, and she doesn’t know when she’ll next get to talk to Ben.

That’s what gets her out of the shower. She wraps herself in a towel and goes back to her bed, picking up her phone from her bedside table.

There’s a text from Ben that had arrived before she’d woken up.

_I slept. Not a lot, but some. I hope you did too._

_I missed you waking up._

_When do you come back?_

_I slept too. My Heat ended yesterday which made your suggestion last night difficult this morning._

_I miss you too. The bed felt empty._

_I think I’m back Tuesday. It’ll depend how the weekend/Monday goes._

_Poe will probably have a better sense of it, but I understand if you don’t want to ask him._

_Probably for the best if I don’t talk to him right now._

_I’m teetering into the fear leads to anger state of fear again and it’s mostly because of him._

_I’ll pass info along as I have it._

_Today’s going to be long, but I’ll try to call tonight._

_Let me know._

Rey changes text windows and texts Finn and Rose both.

_Hey. I know this is a lot to ask, and you’re probably as angry as everyone else. Please keep an eye on Ben for me. I’m worried about him._

She sees them both begin to type at once. Rose replies first.

_Can do. How was your flight?_

_Not bad. My Heat’s wearing off._

Finn’s reply comes just after she hits send on that.

_Why are you asking us to keep an eye on Solo?_

Rey takes a deep breath.

_Because I’ve been seeing him. And I’m worried about him. Because I care about him._

There’s no reply that comes through immediately. She’s probably given Finn a heart attack, but she suspects that Rose will take care of him. She takes a deep breath and begins getting dressed.

-

The day is exhausting. They don’t have the full staff with them while they go with Luke from event to event—it’s just her and Kaydel. They take turns talking to reporters, trying very hard to get them to pay attention to Luke’s words. But all they do is ask about Ben.

Kaydel is better at handling that than Rey, and it’s not long before the two of them decide that Rey’s better off handling Skywalker and sending info back to Poe and Kaydel can handle the press’ intense desire to find out any piece of information that they can about Ben.

Poe doesn’t send information quickly, though whether that’s because he’s busy or because there aren’t updates to share just yet, Rey can’t determine. She gets texts from Rose and Finn over the course of the day, telling her that morale is low, but that the General is performing well. Ben’s being kept out of sight, and Finn texts her halfway through the day.

_I didn’t know about you and Ben (obviously). I’m glad you told me. It’s a lot to process._

_I hope you’re ok through all this. I’m trying to keep an eye on him for you, but he’s been staying closeted away with Amilyn for most of the day._

_We miss you._

The text almost makes her cry. Finn always has her back, even when she goes and does something like getting with Ben Solo right as a scandal that might well have destroyed their campaign breaks loose.

They go to three events, Luke charms the crowds, telling stories about Leia, about how good she is as a person, as a public servant, as a representative, as a General—how a vote for her is a vote for hope in times that seem bleak. That’s what Rey remembers thinking he could do on his radio show. She wishes it didn’t leave a bitter taste in her mouth to hear him talk about hope like this.

 _He probably hasn’t actually seen Ben in ages,_ she reminds herself. _They’d probably need to rebuild the way that Ben’s rebuilding with his mom. There’s probably complicated stuff from Ben’s childhood there too._

As they’re leaving the second speech of the day and heading to the car that’s going to take them downstate for a final event, Luke’s phone rings. He glances at it, then picks up.

“Leia,” he says and his voice is gentle and he turns away from Rey and Kaydel. They both give him some space as he walks through the parking lot, talking to his sister.

Almost immediately, Kaydel’s phone rings. “It’s Poe,” she tells Rey and she answers the phone. “I’m here with Rey.” And she glances around before putting the phone on speaker.

“We’re doing a press conference tomorrow,” Poe says. “Early afternoon. I’ve rescheduled your second speaking event so that all attention is on us. The networks are mostly going to be airing it live.”

“She’s not conceding, is she?” Rey asks desperately.

“She’s not talking at it. Solo is. He’s going to go as long as they have questions.”

Rey stares at the phone. “That sounds dangerous,” Kaydel says slowly. “That sounds like it could go really really bad.”

“Yeah, but desperate times call for desperate measures. People are out for his blood right now and it’s a bad time when even mild, soft-spoken _Anib Ney_ is saying things about how this is a reflection of how Leia’s loyalties blind her to realities. So either he’s got to prove he should be here or he’s got to resign, and Leia won’t let him resign.”

“He’s tried resigning?” Kaydel asks as Rey’s heart stops.

“This morning. She wouldn’t let him.”

Rey’s hand clenches around her phone. He hadn’t told her. Probably because he didn’t want to worry her, but he hadn’t told her. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Kaydel says matter-of-factly. “There’s no way she’s letting him take the blame for Snoke manipulating the situation.” And Rey feels a rush of warmth towards Kaydel in that moment, maybe because she had caught the bitterness in Poe’s voice as he’d relayed the news. _He thinks it’ll be easier with Ben gone._

_Easier for whom?_

She hates that thought. Because the answer—and she hates it—is Snoke.

When they’ve finished the call, Luke is already in the car waiting for them, his face unreadable, and Rey pulls out her phone to text Ben.

_I heard about tomorrow. I’ll be watching unless you’d prefer I not._

_Please. I’ll be calmer if I know at least one viewer isn’t out for my blood._

_With bells on._

-

_You still up? We just got to the hotel and Kaydel’s in the shower._

She doesn’t know how long Kaydel will be in there, but at the very least she can see Ben’s face for a few minutes before turning in. She plugs her headphones into her phone and a moment later he’s calling her.

“Hey,” she says quietly. He looks exhausted again. But unlike last night, he doesn’t look defeated.

“Hey,” he replies and his voice sounds shot, like he’s been talking most of the day. “I probably shouldn’t talk for too long. I’m about to lose my voice and I need it tomorrow.”

“Have you been prepping?” He nods.

“Amilyn’s been drilling me all day. And coaching. But I think mostly just letting out her frustration with the whole situation.” He grimaces.

“Poe said you tried to resign this morning?”

A flash of frustration crosses his face. “That’s a stretch,” he said. “We were in strategy this morning and I suggested it might benefit the campaign for me to leave it, since we were throwing out options. No one was suggesting it and it was an obvious option that no one was treating as obvious while they were all thinking it. And mom said no. Because of course she was going to.”

That makes Rey feel a little better. “Would you have if she’d said it was an option?”

Sadness crossed his face. “Probably. If I thought it would help. I don’t know. I do think she’s the only one who can beat Snoke, and I want to be a part of that, but if I’m more a hindrance than a help…” he sighs and rubs his eyes. “Tell me about your day. What have you been doing?”

So she does. She tells him about the events with Luke Skywalker, tells him about reporters and long car rides filled with whatever talk radio station Luke wants to play as they move around. She skirts around the conversation from the night before. She wants to know more, but Ben’s voice is shot and she doesn’t want to make it worse before tomorrow. _Afterwards,_ she thinks.

Kaydel comes out of the shower, toweling her hair dry. “Is that Ben?” she asks quietly. Rey nods. “Good luck tomorrow, Ben.”

Ben hears it and his eyebrows twitch. He cocks his head when he looks at Rey. “You know,” he mutters, “All things considered—I know people hate me, but some of them are trying to be nice right now. Your friend Finn, for one. I can tell it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but he’s trying. That’s because of you, isn’t it?”

“In Finn’s case, undoubtedly,” Rey says. “The others—I can’t say.”

Ben gives her a tremulous smile. “Well…I know it’s not me they care about right now, but it makes it a little easier to not feel completely loathed here. That’s you.”

“Lions are more sociable cats than panthers,” she teases and he smiles and his smile turns to a yawn.

“You should rest,” she tells him.

“You should too,” he replies quietly. Then, a little embarrassed, he says, “I don’t want to hang up.”

“I don’t either.”

“Are we going to turn into those disgusting, ‘no you hang up’ people because I like you a lot, but I don’t know if I could bear that level of hating myself.”

Rey laughs and a look of peace crosses his face.

“Why don’t we just stay on the line?” she asks as Kaydel goes back into the bathroom to brush her teeth. “Fall asleep with each other?”

He swallows. “I’d like that.”

So Rey hits the light and tilts her phone so that the camera is facing her and curls up on her side.

It’s not long before she hears his breathing slow and she knows he’s asleep.

-

Rey, Kaydel, and Luke Skywalker come back to the hotel around midday to turn on the television and watch Ben’s press conference. They sit in their hotel room with sandwiches, watching as a news anchor vamps while they wait for Ben to appear.

“On Friday afternoon, a memo written by Solo was leaked to major news networks around the country, detailing a strategy to defeat his mother, General Leia Organa, in the general election if she sealed her party’s nomination. At the time, Solo was a strategist working for President Snoke, and his success in helping Snoke during the election briefly landed him a role on the President’s senior staff. Solo left the President’s office a year and a half later, and shortly thereafter appeared working for Leia Organa as she repeated her bid for the presidency.

“There’s been a lot of speculation about what’s been going on in the Organa camp since the memo was leaked. The General’s brother, Luke Skywalker, famed radio personality and guidance guru, came out to campaign for her this weekend. Skywalker, who has remained absent from Organa’s campaign, saying he doesn’t want to get involved in primaries, has only given vague responses as to why he’s starting to help out the Organa campaign now.”

The reporter cut to a video of Luke that only took up half the screen. The other half was still a camera pointed at the empty podium that Ben would be standing at. “You know,” Luke said into a microphone. “It was just time.”

The news anchor reappears. “There’s been little doubt all weekend that that means that the Organa camp is desperately trying to prevent her base from defecting to Anib Ney. Ney was unavailable for comment over the weekend, but one of his senior staff members was quoted as saying that Organa’s loyalties blinded her to the realities of the political arena.

“Solo has been unreachable since the memo leaked, and this will be his first statement since Friday.” And Ben comes onto the screen, dressed in a dark suit and a dark grey shirt, and Rey leans forward staring at him. There are no visible dark circles under his eyes, but she’s sure that they probably caked makeup onto him for the cameras.

Cameras begin to flash as he looks out over the gathered throng of campaign reporters.

“Before we get started,” he says slowly, and his voice is somber, “I have a few things to say. The first is, quite simply, that I know that this has been an upsetting few days for those who support Leia Organa in the presidential primary. I know that it shakes the base, I know that it makes things harder, rather than easier, and I do not deny my role in that or my responsibility for it. To those of you who have been shaken by it, to those on my mother’s campaign who have been working around the clock to try and address the situation, I’d like to extend an apology.”

It’s simple statement, and it seems honest enough to Rey, but glancing over at Luke, she can see that he’s unconvinced. Ben continues. “I’d also like all of you to know that I have already apologized to my mother. I don’t believe this is an appropriate forum to apologize to her directly, so I won’t be apologizing here to her now. I hope you’ll believe that we’ve discussed the situation at length since the news broke on Friday and that I would not be standing here now if I did not sorely wish to make amends to her, to my colleagues, and to those of you who wish to defeat Snoke in his reelection campaign.”

He takes a deep breath and chews on air for a moment before nodding to a reporter that Rey cannot see. “Duria.”

The reporter is not mic-ed, so her question is quieter, but clear all the same. “Can you explain your motivation for writing the memo? Why did you do it? Especially if it was about your mother’s campaign when there were still other primary candidates in the field.”

“My motivation was that my boss asked me to do it. He felt that I would be well placed to strategize against the Organa campaign four years ago, and it was a task that I felt I could set myself to professionally at the time. My political opinions have since vastly shifted, but at the time I saw it as no more or less than completing a piece of opposition research.”

“And you didn’t feel guilty about trying to prepare to defeat your mother?”

“I was working for Snoke. I wanted to defeat anyone who wasn’t him.”

“So why didn’t you write a similar memo about a different candidate?”

Ben takes a deep breath, and then another. He glances sideways at someone who is off camera. “I’m going to apologize to Amilyn Holdo right now. She spent a good deal of time preparing me for this press conference yesterday, and I’m about to blatantly ignore some of the suggestions she made.” He turns back to the reporters. “I’m speaking now as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Organa campaign.”

“Oh, Ben, they won’t care about that,” Luke mutters as Ben takes a deep breath and dives in.

“Snoke likes to play mind games. I’ve seen countless pundits talking about it on most of your networks at this point. It’s why the memo got leaked now, so close to Super Tuesday and it’s how he’s been so effective as President. He finds people’s weaknesses and he exerts them. So his mind game with me was seeing if I would write the memo about my mother. And naïve fool that I was, I did it—and to the best of my abilities.”

“Oh my god,” Kaydel moans nervously as a reporter cuts in.

“You say you think this was a mind game of Snoke’s? What makes you say that?”

Derision crosses Ben’s face and Luke snipes, “Never deride the reporters, Ben. Not when they’re out for your blood.”

“Where else would that memo come from? Snoke doesn’t run a leaky ship. Statistically speaking compared to the last three presidencies, there are fewer leaks coming out of his administration than any of them. Check me on that. I’m right. So if Snoke doesn’t run a leaky administration, where did this leak come from? If it came from Ney’s campaign, where did he get it? That’s not how leaks work, you’re not allowed to reveal your sources, but there’s some common sense that goes into it when you pause and think about political strategy. It came from Snoke. Because he’s afraid that the Organa campaign will win on Super Tuesday and he’ll actually have to pay attention to the General election instead of running rings around Ney like he wants to.”

There’s a murmur over the crowd and one reporter cuts in.

“So you blame Snoke rather than yourself for this memo?”

“I seem to recall having said earlier that I do not deny my part in this.”

“Then the timing of its release?”

“Well I certainly didn’t leak it.”

To Rey’s utter surprise, Luke snorts next to her. “He sounds like Han.”

“You said you think that Snoke’s more worried about running against your mother than against Anib Ney. Can you clarify why you think that?”

Ben takes a sip of water, clearly thinking quickly. Then he cocks his head and looks at the reporter and the expression on his face makes Rey’s breath catch in her throat.

“Let me be clear: Senator Ney is an outstanding senator. He has worked very hard for his constituents over the years and has been crucial to some tough political battles. I do not doubt that if he could win this election, he’d make a good President.

“But I think Organa terrifies the crap out of Snoke. She has experience both as a legislator and as a commander and executive, and so much of the role of President requires an understanding of the military which she has, an understanding of legislative functioning, which she has, and simple desire to make the country a better place, which she has. Her ideals precede her character which is rare for a politician of any party, and her character matches her ideals. As far as political figures go, that’s terrifying in an opponent—especially when her full career is one that is so full of evidence of her effectiveness and her poise under fire that she’s unphased by most things. If the worst thing you can do to try and bring her down is to drag out the work her son has done to bring her down in the past—I find that telling. That’s about my political work far more than hers. She can’t be defeated on merit alone. Which is part of why I’m working for her.”

“I feel like I’m in a polisci lecture again,” Kaydel says, but she looks significantly less nervous than she had before.

“Ben always did like diving into the theoretical. He likes macro-levels,” Luke says.

“Do you think you’re a drag on your mother’s campaign?”

Ben goes still.

“I’d be a fool not to think it. Especially after this.”

“Might the best way to support your mother be to leave her campaign?”

“If I thought that, I’d have done it.”

“Why don’t you think it?”

“Because I’ve worked in Snoke’s office, and know his team. I worked on his campaign four years ago and know how he runs it. You all read that memo that I wrote about my mother four years ago—do you not think it possible that I might be able to provide something similar for the Organa campaign?”

“If Ney wins, would you provide it to Ney?”

“If he wanted to offer me a job, I’d consider it. I’m concerned with beating Snoke. I think my mother is the stronger candidate independently of my relationship with her. So I work for her.”

“What made you want to beat Snoke so badly? You were crucial to his victory four years ago.”

“People can change a lot in four years. I’m not the person I was back then.”

“Can you go into specifics?”

A flash of anger crosses Ben’s face and Rey’s heart tightens nervously. “My dad died,” he says in a clipped tone. “Anyone who says that that doesn’t have the capacity to profoundly shake you and make you question everything you are and how you got there has never lost a parent. Annor, you’ve been sitting quietly. What have you got for me?”

“How is it that you expect our citizens to trust you again?”

“Trust is earned, and the only way to get it is to move forward. I understand if this broke some trust. I’m led to believe not a lot of people on this side of the aisle trusted me to begin with. But the way to garner trust is to behave in a trustworthy way and to do things to prove that I can be trusted. That’s why my mother is as respected as she is. This press conference is a first step for me. We’ll see what comes next as it happens.”

To Rey’s surprise, Luke gets up and leaves the room. Rey watches him go. She’d told Ben she’d watch—and she’s sure she can watch a stream of it later. But right now she gets up and follows Luke out into the hallway.

Luke is staring out of the window, out over the parking lot and the strip mall across the street. His gaze is distant as he looks out over the horizon. He turns his head slightly towards Rey as she steps towards him.

“I’m not blind,” she whispers. “There’s something there in him. Something that deserves compassion.”

Luke nods. “He’s not as gone as I thought he was. I…I didn’t want to believe that.”

He turns back to the window and Rey retreats back into the bedroom, where Ben is answering more questions. The press conference goes on for another hour until the reporters gathered can’t think of anything else to say and Ben is released and the news anchor reappears. They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching as she talks with pundits about the whole press conference. After a while, Kaydel turns off the TV. “We should hit the road,” she says quietly and Rey nods.

She takes out her phone and texts Ben.

_I was watching. You did a good job._

He doesn’t reply right away, but she’s sure he’s busy.

As she and Kaydel step out into the hallway, they see Luke on the phone, staring out of the window again. He gestures to them to head down to the lobby so they head to the elevator and as the doors are closing, Rey hears him say into the phone, “I failed you, Ben. I’m sorry.”

-

The event that evening goes well. People seem a little more relaxed and Luke works the crowd like Rey has never seen anyone be able to work a crowd in her life. Afterwards, Kaydel heads out to grab dinner and drinks with a college friend since they’re in town together and Rey and Luke ride back to the hotel together.

“He did good today,” Luke says quietly to her and Rey glances at him. “In both senses—he did well, and I think doing that was an action of goodness. I spoke to him for the first time in years today.”

“And?” Rey doesn’t know Luke very well, but she does know Ben and Luke wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t want to share.

“And he’s angry. And I deserve that.”

“He’s angry because he’s afraid,” Rey says. Even without having spoken to Ben, she can sense the trend that coursed through his childhood. His wonderful, well-loved Uncle who didn’t seem to care for him. Somehow, she doubts this will be new to Luke.

“I know,” Luke whispers. “I failed him. And in doing that, I failed myself.” He turns his gaze to Rey. “I don’t know what the future holds for any of us. But I’m tired of failing. Even if it is the best way to learn.” He gives Rey the same appraising look he’d given her the other day. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“You seem older.”

“I’ve had a tough life. That ages you fast.”

Luke nods. “Well, I hope you’ll accept my apology for my behavior the other night. It’s a rare day that I run into another cat omega—and when she shows up with my nephew’s scent it’s twice as jarring.”

Rey blinks. _Luke’s an_ omega?

He smiles, knowing exactly what she’s thinking. “Leia got all the alpha, and I got none of it. I think that’s helped me in my career, just as it’s helped her in hers. One more way I never got her son the way she did, I suppose.” He sighs and leans his head back against the headrest. “Anyway—I should have known this might happen. How many times do I tell people that you never stop growing? Did I assume I had? That Ben would?” He shakes his head.

They bid each other goodnight and Rey checks her phone.

_Hey_

_Hey. Just got back to the hotel. Kaydel’s out for a few hours._

He calls her and he looks more relaxed than she’d seen him since she’d left and Rey smiles at him. “You did well today,” she tells him and his lips twitch towards a smile.

“I hope so. We won’t really know until tomorrow.”

“The event tonight was easier than the others have been.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. “Luke—” his eyes flicker and she pauses and changes what she’d been planning to say. “Luke said you spoke earlier.”

He nods, and she waits. “Another thing that will take time,” he says at last.

She nods, and he makes a noise.

“What?”

“I don’t want to talk about my uncle,” he says quietly. “I mean—I know we will. At some point. But right now I just…”

They lie there talking for another half-an-hour, and a text comes through from Kaydel telling Rey not to wait up and she’s going to drink enough to regret her life choices tomorrow.

Then she gives Ben a look.

“Kaydel’s going to be a while,” she says breathily and his eyebrows twitch. The image on his phone shifts as he goes from lying down to sitting up, resting his phone on his knees.

“Take off your shirt,” he growls at her and a shiver of pleasure runs up her spine. She does unbuttons her blouse and reaches behind her back to unhook her bra before throwing both to the floor by the bed. He makes a noise as she settles the phone on her own knees. “I’ve missed you,” he whispers.

“We’ve talked every day since I’ve been gone. And I’ve only been gone for two days,” she teases.

“And I’m not allowed to miss you anyway?” The amusement on his face grows hot and Rey’s breath catches in her throat when he says, “Do I have to ask you to touch yourself?”

“Are you _telling_ me to touch myself?”

“Rey,” he growls and the tone of his voice goes straight between her legs. Only a few days ago she’d be wet and whimpering for him long before now. As much as she hates her Heat, she misses that now, how easy it had been. _Will his scent help when I get back to him?_ she wonders as she brings her fingers up to circle her breast. Her touch is light, and the tips of her fingers are cool and it’s not long before her nipples have puckered.

“Tug at them,” he tells her, and Rey does, moaning at the way it sends warmth curling through her. “How does it feel, kitten?” And with that word she feels her sex begin to twitch. For a moment, she’s back in that hotel room the first night, nearly a week before. She closes her eyes for a moment as she murmurs, “Good.”

“You like it?”

“I do. I like you.”

“I’m there with you. That’s me touching you.” He says it, just as she had the other night, and how she wishes it were. How she wishes she could feel the heat rolling off his chest, could look up into his eyes, rub her scent into his neck, his chest, his face, his back, his groin—everything she could think of to make him smell like her as he made her smell like him.

“And what are you going to do about my skirt?” she asks.

“I seem to recall you saying you didn’t want me to rip your clothes, so I’m going to very gently unzip it and deposit it elsewhere.”

Rey sits and grabs a pillow to rest the phone on while she shimmies it down her hips, taking her underwear with it as she goes. Then she settles back onto the bed, the pillow with her phone down between her legs. “Is that a good angle?” she asks him. She can only sort of see the little version of what he can see from this far away.

“A little bit up?”

“Like this?” She nudges it.

“Perfect. Fuck. Fuck Rey, I miss you.”

“You’re here with me, aren’t you?”

“I am,” he says and his voice is thick now, and her eyelids close again as she leans back against the pillows. “Are you wet for me?”

She tests herself. “Getting there,” she replies.

“Getting there?”

“I’m out of Heat. I need foreplay. Your cock is huge or haven’t you noticed.”

“I had, but it’s nice to hear you say it.”

“Yes, well it’s inconvenient right now if I’m not wet enough for it.”

“Yes. Inconvenient.” He sounds amused. She can’t see his face—can’t see her phone, but she decides that’s for the best. She can pretend he’s in the room with her, maybe standing by the desk a few feet from the bed, watching her spread her legs for him as she tugs at her nipples. “Why are your hands still on your breasts?”

“Where do you want them?” she asks, smirking slightly.

“A little lower than that, I’d think.”

She leaves one on her breast because she doesn’t need two hands between her legs and she trails her fingers along her slit. “Tease,” he says.

“You don’t like teasing?” she asks.

“I like you,” he says, his voice low and she swears she gets a little wetter from the tone of his voice. “Even when you’re teasing.”

She brushes her finger over her clit lightly before dipping her pointer finger inside her for just a moment—enough to grab some of her fluids and bring them back up to that nub. She stops teasing then as she rubs herself, her fingers sliding along her increasingly slick sex as she hears him murmur,

“Kitten, you don’t know how beautiful you are right now.”

“Kitten you’re going to be the death of me.”

“Fuck, Rey.”

“Are you touching yourself?” she asks him, her voice sounding a little wispy, a little breathless in her own ears.

“You think I have that much self-control?”

“I just wanted to be sure,” she says as she slips two fingers into her and rocks her clit against the butt of her hand. She smiles at the sound he makes, smiles at the fact that, unlike the day before when she’d tried fingering herself in the shower, two fingers isn’t enough and she pulls her hand out, widens her legs and adds a third finger.

That’s when her other hand leaves her breast to rest two fingers on either side of her clit. She’s moaning a little bit, biting her lip as she rolls her clit between her fingers as she curls her fingers inside her and yes, oh yes. Her whimpers get more high pitched, and she hears Ben say, “Come for me, sweetheart. Come on,” and her blood roars in her ears and her heart thuds erratically and her lips relax into a smile as she sinks into the bed, her hand still inside her.

“That all you got?” he asks.

“Ben, I’m out of Heat,” she reminds him.

“I think you’ve got another in you,” he says and she still can’t believe that his voice does that to her but her clit twitches under her fingers as though all it can do is react to him. “No—I know you do. You’re not done yet, kitten.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re not done yet,” she says as she starts to move her hands again. Her clit is so sensitive and she takes away the second hand for a moment because she thinks it’ll do more harm than good right now.

“Only somewhat. Think you can fit a fourth finger in there for me?”

Rey pulls her hand out again, rubs it over her sex, massaging it slowly and she smiles when she hears him make an impatient noise in the back of his throat.

“Trust me,” she tells him, “I know what I’m doing.”

“I trust you,” he says at once. The flesh of her sex is so tender under her fingers, warm, and soft, and wet, and open to her, open to him on the camera. She takes a deep breath and slides four fingers in and sighs because yes—that hadn’t been as uncomfortable as she’d feared it might be.

“So incredible,” he pants and she can tell he’s close. She can imagine it now, can practically feel the way his heart beat starts to stutter when he’s moments away from coming. “Rey—” but whatever he’s about to say is cut off in a strangled moan and Rey pushes her fingers deeper, rubbing lightly at her clit with her other hand. It’s still too sensitive, though, so she does her best to curl her fingers, to stroke at the spongy inner lining just behind her entrance, pressing it and nudging it.

“Four fingers,” he says.

“This is easy during Heat,” she tells him. “I did this twice in that airplane lavatory.” She increases her own pressure. “Next Heat I want it to be your fingers. Yours are bigger than mine. I want your whole hand, I want—”

Him.

She wants him.

All of him, whether he’s there or not—she wants him.

She comes again with a strangled cry, her mind full of him, full of how he can make her feel even when they’re hundreds of miles apart, even when they’ve only known each other like this for a week. He can make her laugh, he holds her when she cries, and she feels safe with him, precious to him. The world could end, everything could change, but she knows that this feeling, the way her heart beats strong because she knows he’s there—that won’t change.

“Let me see your face, sweetheart,” he says quietly, and Rey sits up. She picks up the phone and he’s there, flushed and bright-eyed.

“Can we fall asleep together again tonight?” she asks him. She doesn’t know why it’s shy. He’s just had a front row view of her shoving four fingers inside herself. _Except that that’s sex. This is closeness._

_He said he’d take care of me._

_No one’s ever taken care of me._

And she’s known this—known this for a long while, but just as she knows that her parents are never coming back for her, were never going to—she knows she wants to let Ben help her take care of herself.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Hang on, let me find pajamas.” She stumbles to her suitcase and grabs the pajamas she hasn’t worn in nearly a week. Then she climbs back onto the bed and turns off the light. And it’s not long before she’s drifting off into a peaceful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a weird week for me, and at one point I was considering waiting to post this chapter update until my anxiety had fully gone away because I've been keeping myself off tumblr for a few days and had a moment of "I always post chapter updates to tumblr. I can't do that if I'm keeping myself off tumblr." But that sounded dumb even through my anxiety, so here you are. Thank you all for unintentionally helping me with my anxiety and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 
> 
> I'm really looking forward to wrapping this fic up next week, and for those of you who have Monday off, enjoy your long weekend! <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @spacedarcy made a [moodboard](https://galacticprideandprejudice.tumblr.com/post/174348214027/spacedarcy-i-want-to-wail-at-the-moon-like-a) for this check it out!!

The next day passes in a blur. The media has been having a field day with the events of the weekend and everywhere Rey turns, she sees Ben’s face. Pictures of him on the front pages of newspapers, talking to reporters, or clips of him on television screens.

 _I’m going on TV again,_ he texts her midway through the morning as she and Luke and Kaydel are driving back towards Luke’s for a quick break before one final event.

Every email that came from to her phone with updates was so full of energy that Rey almost wanted to shut the damn thing off.

_We’re up three points in three states—that’s out of swing range._

_Two polls actually have us down two never mind._

_Volunteers are cranking up the calls!_

“Someone needs to calm Poe down or else he’ll explode,” Rey mutters to Kaydel while Luke is talking at one of the events.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll take care of it when I get back. Even if my Heat’s over.”

Rey raises an eyebrow at her. Kaydel shrugs. “Look, I was in Heat and he needed to blow off steam. It’s nothing serious. Not like you and Ben.”

Rey doesn’t even bother protesting at the term serious being applied. She’s out of Heat too and she'd talked to him every day, video chatted with him, phone sexed with him. She’s sitting there waiting to know if they’re doing an event tomorrow or if she’ll have a flight back to base and maybe be able to sleep in her own bed. _Or Ben’s._ She hasn’t let herself hope that she’ll see him before tomorrow.

The notification comes through from Poe at around four in the afternoon—there might be cameras filming Luke voting in the primary tomorrow, so having staff on hand would be good. _Flights for you back to base are being booked. Thanks for your flexibility._

A moment later, an email comes through from the General.

_Team,_

_I want to thank you all for the work you’ve put in in the past few days and weeks. I know times have been trying—and that we’ve had more excitement than we’d wanted or planned, and I wanted to send this out to you before, rather than after, poll results tomorrow evening._

_After I submit my ballot, I’m planning on spending some time at home. I can’t remember the last time I was in my own house—and I’m inviting all of you. I’m going to shut off the wifi so no one can check exit polls (though you can, if you want, cram into the study to watch the news) and there’ll be food and drink aplenty. You’re by no means obligated to come—I understand if you are missing your own homes quite as much as I am missing mine._

Rey’s never been to the General’s house and a moment later, her phone buzzes with a text from Ben.

_You’re flying back tomorrow?_

_Yeah, not sure what time just yet but I’ll know soon._

_Are you planning to come to my mother’s?_

_Where will you be?_

_I’d planned to be there until you arrived. Then I planned to be wherever you want to be._

Rey smiles at his words.

_I’ll meet you there, then._

 

-

 

Luke votes, smiles for the cameras, answers a few questions and then waves Rey and Kaydel off to the airport. Rey sleeps the entire flight, and when they land, they grab a cab to Leia’s house.

There are about twenty of the campaign staffers already there, and the two of them spend several minutes greeting colleagues and swapping stories and comments about nervousness. Finn gives Rey one of the biggest hugs of her life. “Missed you,” he tells her, and there’s a lightness to his smile that makes her happy.

“Been keeping busy?” she asks and he nods.

“Looking forward to a day off,” he replies.

“Day off? Afternoon off at most,” Poe appears at his shoulder. “We’re winning this thing. I can feel it. So we’re back at it bright and early tomorrow morning.”

“Let the man breathe, Poe,” Leia calls. “And let _me_ breathe please. If you’re going to talk about post-election possibilities, please do so outside.”

“Turn around three times and spit while you’re at it,” Amilyn adds. “You don’t want to invoke the wrath of the guy high atop the thing. Go on.”

“I—” Poe begins.

“ _Outside.  Now.  Three times and spit,”_ Amilyn commands.

Poe departs and Amilyn watches him go with a stern gaze. Leia reaches a hand out to Rey and Rey takes it. “Thank you for going to Luke. He was grateful you were there.”

“It was a pleasure,” Rey tells her and Leia gestures her down and Rey bends her head so she’s closer to hear her say, very quietly, “You’ve done more than you know. And even if today doesn’t go as we hope, I want you to know that. That they spoke again…” the General’s eyes are bright. “I have been meaning to take you out to lunch as an apology for the other day. But maybe it can be an apology-gratitude combination for so much.”

Rey’s throat tightens as she nods. There’s something different about the way the General is speaking to her now. Something that doesn’t feel like a General, like a Presidential candidate. Something warm, and kind, and loving.

“I’d like that,” she says, giving Leia a small smile.

“Good.”

“You’re looking for Ben?” Finn asks her as she turns away from Leia, peering around the room.

Rey flushes. Finn gives her a supportive smile, even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I think he’s upstairs. Wanted some quiet.”

Rey gives him a quick hug. “I’ll be back down later,” she promises.

“Take your time.”

“Are you teasing me?”

“Why would I tease you? Have you done something worthy of teasing?”

She rolls her eyes and slips out of the living room, passing Rose right as she’s coming out of the bathroom.

“Hi!” Rose squeals delightedly, throwing her arms around Rey. “Did you just get back?”

“Yeah,” she says. “A few minutes ago.”

“Looking for Ben?” Rose asks, her eyes twinkling. Rey gives her a look and then her eyes widen as she notices a discoloration on Rose’s neck.

“Rose—did you—”

“Might have jumped his bones when we thought the campaign was going to shit,” she shrugs, clearly trying to look nonchalant and just as clearly failing.

“And you didn’t _tell me?_ ” Rey hisses.

“There was a lot going on,” Rose replies, before adding quickly. “And I didn’t want to jinx it.”

Rey gives her friend another quick hug before climbing the stairs to the second floor.

It’s quieter up here, and she pokes her head into several different rooms before finding one at the end of the hall with a closed door. She knocks on it lightly. She hears movement and the door opens and he’s standing there, blinking down at her, looking almost surprised.

“Hi,” she tells him, stepping towards him and burying her face in his chest. Yes, that’s him. That’s that smell—musky and warm and Ben.

“Of course. You’re not in Heat.”

“You didn’t smell me?”

“I thought you were Rose coming to fetch me for some unknown reason,” he says a little sardonically. He pushes the door closed behind her and rubs his face into her hair. “Should have put two and two together. You didn’t smell strong enough like her.” He leads her towards the bed and pulls her down onto it, hovering over her and rubbing his face against her clothing, against her skin. The scent of him is intoxicating. But where a few days before she’d already be sopping wet for him, now there’s just a light warmth, pleasant, calm. She laces her hands through his hair and opens her eyes and looks around.

“Was this your room growing up?” There are several walls of books and a desk with a very fancy pen set on it. The art on the wall looks like it was drawn by him too—some of it’s framed, while other pieces are stuck with tape on the wall.

He pauses before turning and lying down between Rey and the window. “Yeah,” he says. My parents turned it into a guest room when I was in college.”

“What was it like when you were growing up?”

“Messier,” he replies. His fingers are trailing up and down her arm. “What was it like—did you—when you were growing up?”

And she realizes she’s never told him. Not once. She’s hinted, or carefully steered the conversation away. She doesn’t like talking about it. She doesn’t like thinking about it.

“I lived with a foster family for a few years. He ran a dump. I turned one of his worksheds into my room because I didn’t want to be in the house.” She bites her lip and he nuzzles at her neck. _This is what home smells like now,_ she thinks and there are tears in her eyes. “It was small, but it was safe. And especially when I was in Heat, I could lock the door and make sure no one came in unless I wanted them to. I couldn’t afford suppressants until I joined the campaign.” His arms tighten around her and when she turns to look at him, she loses herself in the softness she sees there.

No.

Not loses herself.

“I love you,” she whispers to him, and she watches his jaw twitch, feels him stop breathing next to her. “I know it’s fast, I know there’s a lot we still don’t know about each other. But I love you.”

“Rey,” he whispers, and a moment later his lips are crashing to hers, his fingers tight in her hair and he’s pulling her on top of him. “Rey, I love you. More than I know what to do with. And fuck if it’s fast. It feels right.”

It does. It really does.

She buries her face in his neck. Even if she’s not in Heat, there’ll be some of her scent to put there. _Mine,_ she thinks as she does it. She’s never felt possessive before—maybe because she hadn’t thought there was anything to possess in someone. Maybe because she didn’t see why anyone would be possessive of her because they didn’t know her.

They lie like that quietly for a long while. Every now and then, the sound of some laughter comes up the stairs and down the hall to reach them, but for the most part, the room is silent but for their breathing.

“It’s hard for me,” she whispers to him. “To talk about my past. I don’t have people to remind me of it mostly, so when I dig it up, I’m the only one digging it up. And part of me wants to find my parents, to know why they left me, to figure out what comes next. But I know that’s my own fear that I have to do it all myself.” She swallows. Ben’s been inside her so many times, has made her come apart with tongue, and fingers, and cock, but this, she thinks, is the most intimate thing she’s experienced with him.

His hand traces the length of her spine. “You’ll do what you’ll do,” he whispers to her at last. “You’ll be what you’ll be. And I’ll be there to help you when you need it, and support you when you don’t.”

“You’re going to make me cry again if you keep saying things like that,” she tells his neck, hoping he can’t hear the way her throat has already gone a bit thick. He just keeps stroking her back.

“Your mom wants to take me out to lunch,” she tells him.

He snorts. “I’m not surprised. She thinks very highly of you, you know.”

“She does?”

“Yeah,” Ben says. “We talked. We talked a lot in the past few days. Not even about the memo. Mostly about you. It’s funny—all my life it’s been politics with my mom. I think it was the first time we’d talked about feelings, I don’t know, since I was a kid. It was good. Weirdly.”

“So she knows—”

“She knows I love you. She doesn’t know you love me, but she knows you’ve been there even when you were gone. She knows you stood up to me to Luke, and—”

“How did you know about that?”

“He told her. She told me.” Rey’s hand tightens on his chest and he rubs his face against hers. “My family talks to each other. And I seem to finally be getting in on that, which was the last thing I ever expected. And something tells me they’d welcome you if you wanted in too.”

Rey props herself up to look at him. They’d talked about a vague future during her Heat, when they’d lost themselves to instinct and wanted his knot to get her pregnant. She can see in his eyes he hasn’t forgotten that. She hasn’t either.

_He still wants it._

_And I do too._

The thought sends a shiver down her spine. She’s still _really_ young, and the pragmatism wrought from years of fending for herself tells her that she shouldn’t even consider it for a few years—make sure that it’s not just her own joy at finding him that’s pushing her there.

But to want it at all, to have someone to want it with, to be wanted that way—

“One day at a time,” she whispers to him and bends her head to brush her lips against his own.

“Seems to have been working for us so far.”

“Mmmhmmm,” she hums into his lips and she knows as he deepens the kiss that they’re done talking for now.

The beautiful thing about not being in Heat anymore is that she’s not frantic for him now. She is lightly aroused, and peaceful, and her heart is full of him, but she doesn’t _need_ him in her that moment the way she did the last time they’d fucked each other breathless. Now, she gets to luxuriate in him. She kisses every freckle on his cheek as she unbuttons his shirt, and then kisses every freckle on his chest and stomach, on his legs as she peels his pants down them, and when she’s fully stripped the clothes off him, she lies down between his legs, kissing her way across his hips while a hand lazily pumps along his shaft. As she presses her face against the base of his cock, she decides it feels like having alcohol tolerance—being able to drink more before getting completely shitfaced. She can have more of him now.

And she licks the vein that runs along his shaft and he moans and his hands come to find her hair. She licks again, and again, not taking him into her mouth just yet, not even touching his tip with her tongue. She just licks along the length of him, runs her lips against his skin, enjoys how soft it is even as with every passing moment she can tell he’s getting harder, and harder, and harder.

She looks up at him, locking eyes for a moment. His eyes are more black than brown and his cheeks are flushing and she can tell he resists rolling his eyes as she continues to lick along him.

“Let me play with you,” she whispers. “I can finally do that without losing my mind.”

“Only if I get to play with you when you’re done,” he says.

“Done,” she agrees, grinning, and she nuzzles at his ball sack before taking it into her mouth. Ben gasps and his fingers go tight against her scalp, and Rey rolls one testicle against her tongue, pulling at the skin connecting it to him with her lips.

He’s groaning and she feels a dribble of precum dripping down his shaft to land on her cheek and she releases his balls with a pop and licks the precum right off him—tangy and delicious and Ben. Only then does she bring her tongue to his tip, swirling over it to collect the remaining liquid and he dribbles a little more—as if knowing she wanted it.

“You know, I never much liked giving blow jobs before,” she tells him, watching as her breath across his tip right after she’d licked it makes his eyes roll into the back of his head. “It always felt like a courtesy if someone was going to eat me out. Like I shouldn’t complain. But goddamn I love sucking your dick.”

And she does—and this time, because she hadn’t been able to when he’d been in Rut, she relaxes her throat and sucks him down until her nose is rubbing in the dark hair at his base and she feels him actually trembling underneath her.

She looks up at him again and a moment later he’s coming, shooting hot seed down her already relaxed throat, and warmth and pride floods her. She’d undone him with a look. Sure, his cock down her throat had helped, but she knows him well enough he’d have been able to hold his own for a good few pumps there. No, it was her want that had undone him. He’s panting now, his eyes closed and Rey releases his cock gently. She kisses her way along his stomach again—now nipping at each of the freckles, determined to give them each their own hickie, their own halo. The higher up she gets, she feels his hand slip down her spine just as it had while they’d been lying there calmly, but it goes lower this time. Lower, and lower and her rear arches up as he finds that spot at the base of her spine, right where once she might have had a tail.

“I love you,” he murmurs as she rubs her face into his neck. He rubs at her ear, and the other hand comes to rub that sweet spot behind it too. Rey purrs.  He definitely smells like her now.  He smells like her, and she smells like him, and that’s what it will be like from now on. The mix of them feels so natural.  

Ben rolls her over, and begins to unbutton her blouse. Before long her clothes have joined his on the floor and now it’s Ben’s turn and what sweet madness it is the way he nips at her stomach, nips at the soft underside of her small breasts. His fingers are down between her legs, rolling her clit between them and it’s not long before Rey’s purrs turn into a very different sound. She wants more than that—more than just that light rolling. She wants him buried inside her, wants him thrusting into her so violently she’ll feel it for days. But instead his touch grows lighter and soon it is gone from her core and she’s spreading her legs wider, hoping the scent of her will break his calm.

 _I shouldn’t have made him come,_ she thinks as he kisses his way down her leg, nipping at the back of her knees which feels better than it has any right to. _I should have edged him._ Instead, he’s in refractory, his cock limp between his legs, and even limp it’s long. Rey reaches for it with the foot that he isn’t kissing his way towards and his hand snaps to her ankle and tugs it away.

“Let me play with my toys, please,” he tells her and it’s such a silly way to phrase it that she laughs. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Always.”

“That’s not very nice.” He doesn’t sound upset by it, though.

“You’re not being very nice.”

“I was very nice. I let you do as you pleased. But you don’t even last a few minutes before you’re trying to ruin my fun.”

“Ruin your fun?” She is trying so hard not to laugh again, and a moment later he’s on his knees and fuck he’s got three fingers inside her, pumping them fast but not against her g-spot and that’s what she wants, that right there, except a moment later they’re gone.

“Yeah. Ruin my fun. So stay put.”

“Yes, sir,” she huffs and he stiffens for a moment and she swears she sees his cock twitch. When she looks up at him, she sees fire in his eyes. Her gut jolts as if she’s in a car that just stopped short. She feels heat creeping up her chest from the look in his eyes. Her nipples are already stiff but suddenly they seem to tingle. _Oh._ That’s…

Every time an alpha’s asked her to call him sir, or master, or something, she’s kicked him out of her bed. She doesn’t know if she could do it without being a brat. But if she could, it would be with Ben, because she knew that if she couldn’t bring herself to do it, somehow she knows he wouldn’t care. Something to try later. Because there would be a later. There’d be all the time in the world.

He doesn’t break eye contact as he brings her ankle to his lips and kisses it. He doesn’t break eye contact as he kisses his way up her other leg. He doesn’t break eye contact until he’s got his tongue inside her, his nose nudging against her clit and her legs thrown over his shoulder. Then, he closes his eyes as though he wants to savor every flavor of her coming across his tongue, in through his nose. He wants to breathe her in, drink her down, and Rey’s stomach rolls and she runs her hands through his hair, finding the spot behind his ears and rubbing.

He starts to purr, and the vibrations of it on top of the feeling of his tongue sends Rey’s hips rocking into his face. “Fuck,” she hears herself saying, and her instinct is to grab his hair, but that’s why he’d never purred into her cunt before—because she’d always been grabbing, pulling, tugging. So she keeps stroking with trembling hands and it doesn’t matter how light his nose is nudging into her clit because his contentedness is sending fire through her veins.

“Ben,” she moans as he purrs into her, and she can feel it in her whole body now somehow, as though her flesh has magnified his peacefulness, as though her blood carries it through her body, a part of her life now. His hair is so soft. So very, beautifully soft, and the sound of her own breathing is so loud in the room, so high pitched compared to the thrumming purrs rolling out of his throat. What a fine music, they make.

It is a gentler orgasm than one she’s had in a while—lazy and low in her stomach, heat painting its way up her skin as her veins thrum blood through her in time to his purring, as her cunt contracts over his tongue and she can’t help it now, she has to hold his head because she has to hold onto something. And when it’s done, she closes her eyes and lets herself sink into his bed, as he presses a kiss to her thigh, to the spot of stomach between her pubic hair and her belly button. “That,” he whispers. “I want that every day. Every day until I die.”

“That sounds nice,” Rey smiles, because it does. Ben every day until she dies sounds like just what she wants right now. She opens her eyes and peers down at him. He’s watching her, his head resting on the lower part of her stomach. She recognizes the look in his eyes. “You’re not done, are you,” she asks.

“I’m paused,” he admits. “I probably need a few more minutes before I can fuck you again—and I want to.”

“Probably?”

He snorts. “I don’t know if you know this but you smell amazing and it does things to me.” And he lowers his head to nuzzle into the wiry dark curls growing at the base of her torso. “Even without your Heat overpowering my suppressants. But it’s not overpowering them so I’ll need a few minutes.”

And part of her wants to leave him there, nuzzling away at her. But she’s worried she’ll sink too much into contentment if she does so she sits up and pulls him up too. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed because she’s boxed him in a little bit. A moment later, she’s pulling his face back to hers so she can kiss him. She caresses every line of his face as her tongue tastes the echo of herself in his mouth, she rubs behind his ears again and immediately he purrs and rubs the same spot behind her ears and she starts purring, but them purring into one another’s lips tickles and she laughs and breaks away.

He kisses her hair, his hands leaving her head to run down her spine and a moment later he’s got his hands under her hips and is pulling her over to sit on his lap. Not even in a particularly effective way for sex because she’s not straddling him—she’s just sitting there, her arms around her neck, her face a little more level to his, sitting on his thighs the way she is. And that won’t do, she decides so she gets up and repositions herself to straddle his hips. Even if his cock’s still limp, she wants to be able to feel his heart in his chest, wants to be able to hold him as tightly as she can.

So she kisses him. Slowly, and deeply, tracing his upper lip with her tongue, nipping at his lower lip, running her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. She kisses her way down his neck, kisses her way along his shoulders, across his collar bones and then back up the other side. She sucks at his earlobe, she sucks blemishes into his neck and he—

His hands roll patterns into the muscles of her ass, little circles that send warmth deep into the muscle, his tongue delves into her mouth, as deep as it’ll go until she knows that he’s breathing her in quite as deeply as he had when his lips had been at her slit. But for all they are kissing, for all they are holding and caressing—perhaps it is because he is not aroused, or perhaps it because she is not in Heat, but the kisses don’t feel passionate. They feel deeper than that, somehow, as though it is their souls doing the work while their hearts and bodies rest for a moment. And when he rests his forehead against hers, and looks at her with eyes that are deep and dark and hers, and Rey doesn’t care how long they do this for—she doesn’t need anything else. She just needs him looking at her like that, holding her like that.

But they do not exist in eternities. And at some point, she feels him stirring underneath her and smiles into his lips. He smiles back and now when he looks at her there’s that familiar look. His hands leave her ass and come round the front to help her up and guide him into her and Rey lets her head fall forward to rest on his shoulder for just a moment.

Then he hoists one of her legs up into his arm, holding it up while the other snakes under her other leg as he begins to thumb her clit at the same time that he begins to rock his hips against hers and Rey lets out a moan that’s long and low. The rest of this had felt so sweet until this moment and now—

Now, Rey opens her eyes and bites down against his collarbone. She hoists herself up so that her arm is thrown across his shoulder, her hands twining in the hair at the top of his neck and the motion pulls her off him more than he would like and he growls and thrusts even harder into her as she sucks at his neck. She grinds herself into his hand, focusing on the way his thumb is sending the precursors of tremors through her as his cock fills and voids her. And then, because she’s never tried it, it’s never occurred to her to try it until right this very second, she uses her other hand—the one not holding her up, holding her to him—to wrap around him, trace down his spine and rub against that spot that—

His hips jerk back and he pauses, looking down at her. “Minx,” he whispers, kissing her forehead.

“I’d think you would know by now I’m a lioness,” she teases.

“Huntress, yes, yes,” he says, rolling his eyes and she rubs at the spot again and his rear rolls towards her again and she kisses his lips as his eyes flutter closed for just a moment before he jerks his hips forward again and sheaths himself inside her. She brings the hand up to his shoulder and deepens the kiss as his thumb on her clit does what he had put it there to do and her body contracts on his for one sweet moment before she melts against him with a sigh while her cunt trembles around his thrusting cock.

He kisses her through her tremors before upping his speed until he’s choking out her name and burying his face in her neck and coming apart inside her.

He pulls them both back down to the bed as she feels his cock start to slacken inside her. How strange not to be in Heat anymore, for her hormones in the air bringing him to lock himself inside her. Oddly she misses it, though the knot had been painful to move around and it was certainly inconvenient to have to lie there for half an hour after they’d both spent themselves.

She likes lying there with him. That was how she’d come to know him, really.

He pulls her to his chest, though, and his eyes are drooping happily as he looks down at her, a light smile at his lips. Rey buries her face into his chest, and starts to purr.

 

-

 

She sits curled up next to Ben on the couch, his arm thrown lazily over her shoulder as they all stare at the television. There are three states to go before they clinch it and Ben’s hand is tight in Rey’s as they watch, his knuckles are white with nerves.

In one of the throne-like armchairs in the living room, Leia Organa has her eyes locked on the screen as the news anchors summarize the trials of the past week, of how they’ve come from behind in two states they were low in the polls for. There are six states left that are too close to call, and everyone in the room is nervous.

Everyone except for Rey.

She knows they’re going to win. She can feel it in her bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support during! I've really had a spectacular time sharing it with you all and I'm so glad that you all have enjoyed it!
> 
> For those of you pining for more ABO, I have another one that's set to hit AO3 later this week (though it's of a different variety; you'll see when you get there) so keep a weather eye out!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> I have a [tumblr](http://crossingwinter.tumblr.com/reylo)! Come say hi!


End file.
